


Burn Like Ruby Fire

by OceanOwlsTweet



Series: My Favourite Fandoms and Haikyuu [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Magic, Misunderstandings, Omega Akaashi Keiji, Omega Hinata Shouyou, Omega Kozume Kenma, Omega Nishinoya Yuu, Omega Oikawa Tooru
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanOwlsTweet/pseuds/OceanOwlsTweet
Summary: Nishinoya and Hinata are volleyball boys all the way, but when something happens that threatens the safety of their friends, will they be able to step up to the challenge with the help of their friends or will it be too much for them?Omegaverse AUHaikyuu and Puella magi crossoverI can't write summaries so pls give it a try.(I know the title is random)
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu, Haiba Lev & Kozume Kenma, Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei, Hinata Shouyou & Nishinoya Yuu, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi, Shimizu Kiyoko/Yachi Hitoka, Takeda Ittetsu/Ukai Keishin, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Series: My Favourite Fandoms and Haikyuu [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976362
Comments: 3
Kudos: 52





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction EVER and I’m still figuring out my writing style, so sorry for any big changes in writing style. Also, I’m not too sure about the haikyuu timeline, I’ve only watched two seasons. Pls no negative comments I can’t stand it. Feedback is fine tho (just be gentle). PS in this version Hinata and Kageyama’s fight wasn’t that bad so they still practice together. I don’t own Haikyuu or Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Hope you enjoy!

Nishinoya was five when his mother died. 

He remembers it well. His mother had been cooking kare pan (japanese curry bread) his favourite, but she had forgotten to buy the breadcrumbs the most important ingredient in Nishinoya’s opinion. So, with a hug and a kiss she had left for the shops. It had been windy. Her hair swishing as she closed the door. He could not have known that that would be the last time Nishinoya Yuu would see his mother.  
He didn’t understand when his dad said his mum wouldn’t be back with the breadcrumbs, didn’t know his mum hadn’t just gone to some far way market. Didn’t understand why his dad was crying and couldn’t have known how much things would change.

The first time his father had forgotten to give him lunch was when he was seven years old. 

It had been a rushed Monday his father hadn’t been all there. Kazumi Nishinoya had been very distant that morning but Nishinoya didn’t mind, it was getting close to that day. He had been sent off to school with a pat on the back and a wave goodbye. No usual hug Noya pondered. Shrugging he had left to go to school. He left school hungry that day and confused. Why had his dad forgotten his lunch? He had shrugged it off as a one off.  
His dad never cooked for him again. Nishinoya didn’t know what had gotten into him, and he seemed to get worse from that day on. Nishinoya knew he couldn’t be sick, because sick people got better. His mum had taught him that when grandpa had gotten the sniffles. His father didn’t speak as much as he did before. Always answering Nishinoya in one word or small sentence answers. He didn’t hug Noya anymore and his smiles felt forced and weak. Noya was left alone for the most part. His dad busy with work and whatnot. There had been a time when he was 10, his father was one break from work. Nishinoya had cooked dinner as always and was bringing it up to him. 

His father had smiled at him. 

A real smile, and he’d said that Nishinoya was reliable and it was all he could ask for. 

He hadn’t said anything of the sort since. And Noya did everything to get him to speak like that again; earnestly and clearly. But he just seemed to get worse as Noya grew; he didn’t say anything when Noya passed his geometry test, didn’t bat an eye when Noya joined the volleyball club, nor when he presented as an omega. He didn’t even glance twice at his best libero award, a feat that Nishinoya had been very proud of. Nishinoya was even left to spend birthdays alone. Though sometimes when dad was too busy, he got to spend it with grandma and grandpa. As Nishinoya grew he got louder and more enthusiastic. Seeking the attention of his father.

It was discouraging. 

Nishinoya was 15 when his father told him the news. 

They were having a big family dinner with his dad’s side of the family and even grandma (from his mum’s side) was there. His father had announced that as a result of his hard work he would be accepting a work position in Tokyo and would be away from Miyagi to fulfil his work position. He would only be back for holidays and work days off. Grandpa Nishinoya seemed pleased and congratulated his son wholeheartedly. Everyone seemed pleased, except for grandpa Mineo, who looked sad and grandma, who looked angry. Nishinoya couldn’t remember the night well, after dinner there had been a lot of shouting, it may have been Grandma.

All that he knew was his dad was leaving him. But it was worse than with his mum.

Because his dad was choosing to leave him.

In the end it was hopeless to argue because his dad was leaving Sunday and there was nothing he could do about it.

His dad didn’t get to see him graduate.


	2. Birthdays and Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not know how a japanese household works nor do I know how to use japanese honorifics, so sorry if this offends annyone.

Nishinoya has been living with his Aunt Sara and Uncle Hiroshi for the past year and a bit. And god were his relatives a boring bunch. The only relief he got from them was when he went to visit his grandparents or his grandparents came to visit him.

Not only were they boring but his Aunt and Uncle just didn’t appreciate how much of a holy sport volleyball was, and they called it a waste of time when he practiced. In short, they were insufferable. And don’t get him started on his cousin, Yua. Talk about annoying. No time to mourn his unfortunate house mates pairing though. He had to get to volleyball practice. So, he grabbed a piece of milk bread and ran to school. Nishinoya had been in one too many tight positions with annoying alphas and betas who thought he could be easily cornered just because he was an average sized omega (he wasn’t short damn it!). It just seemed such an easy fix to run to school, and he got his warmup over and done with, leaving more time for volleyball. It was a win-win situation really.

When Nishinoya got to the gym, Hinata and Kageyama were already there practicing their special combo. Those two first years were crazy, they practiced more than he did when his dad had started ignoring him. Though he got where they were coming from, they all had to practice harder than ever now that they had flunked Interhigh prelims. Thinking back, he really hadn’t been feeling his best during the last set of prelims and it seemed like the whole team had been thrown off balance by that.

“I see you guys are already hard at work.”

Suga smiled. Nishinoya, Hinata and Kageyama were already working hard to get heir team to nationals. It made the omega feel like he had made the right decision staying with the team. They could do this. He smiled as Nishinoya started saving Hinata’s spikes, much to the carrot top’s amazement and the prodigy setter’s disgruntlement. Suga really believed the Karasuno volleyball team could make it to nationals with the team they had now. They had a great libero, crazy first years, Asahi had come back and Daichi was still the team’s superb backbone. Not to mention Yamamguchi is working on his serve and Tsukishima is a great blocker. With a bit more time to learn their footing Karasuno could be a real threat.

Soon everyone was here practicing, Nishinoya seemed particularly fired up as he started receiving Asahi’s spikes with a few rounds of ‘rolling thunder’, to Asahi’s delight. Honestly, it was so obvious that Asahi liked Noya. And it was painful to watch Asahi stumble around Nishinoya and smile like a puppy whenever he made Nishinoya happy. And they were so good for each other. Any blind man could see that! Noya outgoing and straightforward as he was, perfectly complimented Asahi’s shy, gentle demeanour. Suga just wanted them to just get together already! But setting them up was hard when Asahi was such a nervous wreck and Nishinoya (bless him) was such an oblivious little muffin. Not that he was trying to get them together. Whatever was going with those two, Suga would let them figure it out on their own. Suga never meddled. Never. He had a policy against it, in fact.

“What are you scheming, Suga?”

Suga blinked. It was Daichi. Of course it was.

“Don’t try and look all innocent. I’ve known you more than 2 years now, I know your scheming face,” Daichi replied, with a smirk.

That infuriating, sexy smirk. God, he didn’t know the power he had over Suga.

“You make it sound like I’m always planning something,” Suga said playfully.

“Well, I – Uh… You-”

Suga laughed, he loved it when the alpha got all flustered.

“Relax Daichi, I’m not planning anything. So, you don’t have to worry.”

With that Suga left to go set for Asahi.

Besides, Suga really wasn’t planning anything, things would happen in their own time. And Suga, really couldn’t help but worry for the smaller omega sometimes. Omegas didn’t have the muscle capacity to protect themselves against most alphas, and there were more than a few pricks who thought they had a chance, luckily none of them ever persisted. And well let’s face it Suga knew Nishinoya looked like an easy target. So was it so bad for him to want his friends to not only be happier together, but for Nishinoya to be safer as well.

They weren’t the only ones too. Let it not be left unsaid that Karasuno volleyball team was filled with oblivious idiots. Suga was pretty sure Tsukishima had a crush on Yamaguchi, and who could blame him, the omega was absolutely precious. Not to mention, Kageyama and Hinata who were both as oblivious to their feelings as each other. And Suga would be damned if he graduated without seeing his poor babies find happiness with each other. Oh. And Tanaka and Ennoshita would make the sweetest couple. Suga wasn’t sure what Ennoshita was though. Might be a problem. But oh well, love is love. 

Hinata was really looking forward to afternoon practice.

He was working on directing his spikes. And it was really cool. But there was still 5 minutes left.

Ugh class was taking forever...

And he wasn’t feeling too good. God, he had such a headache… and his back hurt… and his tummy didn’t feel too good either.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Ugh… had that clock always been so loud. Hinata looked to the teacher. She was talking. What was she saying? Ring. Ring. Ring. What was that? Why was everything so distant.

“Oi dumbass, you coming?”

Kageyama. Kageyama was here. And they were at school. That’s right. And… now it was time for… volleyball! Hinata sprung up from his seat.

“Ha. Race you there Bakageyama!”

Hinata laughed and ran full speed out the door.

“You idiot! That’s cheating!”

When Kageyama and Hinata got to the gym. Suga, Daichi and Asahi were already there setting up.

“Wah, Suga san how did you beat us here?” the omega whined clearly disbelieving.

“You idiot, they beat us here because of your daydreaming after class,” Kageyama flicked Hinata on the back of the head.

“Ow…” he rubbed his head. That’s right he had been spacing out. That had been weird and kind of scary for the ginger omega. Oh well, whatever it was had passed. And he was as springy as ever, so no harm done. He was just about to retort to Kageyama calling him an idiot twice now when—

“Oi dumbass you gonna practice or just stand there?”

Hinata puffed his cheeks. Whatever, if Bakageyama was going to be that way, Hinata would spike so perfectly that Kageyama would be complimenting him by the end of the practice. Nevertheless, Hinata jogged over to begin spiking.

Halfway through volleyball practice though something felt off. Hinata didn’t know what, he felt light-headed and unfocused. He felt tired too like he could just fall at any moment. Kageyama set the ball perfectly as usual and he hit it as usual. But this time something didn’t feel right. As he descended a pain went through his body. He stumbled on the landing. No one had seemed to notice though.

Bop. Bop.

That was the sound… of the ball hitting the ground… after bouncing off Nishinoya senpai’s head. Everyone stopped. Nishinoya was nothing if not reliable and that had been such an easy receive. Nishinoya looked shocked too. So shocked the omega seemed to have frozen in place.

“Noya are you ok?” Daichi’s voice was soft, the textbook definition of stable alpha. And that’s what he had to be just in case Noya turned out to be in some emotional crisis (for whatever reason), he the captain had to stay strong.

This seemed to snap Noya out of whatever that was, and to Daichi’s relief (or concern), his libero grinned his usual unabashed grin, claiming he had just been distracted by something and that he was fine. Though his body language wasn’t saying that he was fine at all, in fact it was saying that the small omega was in a rush to leave. That was concerning. For a moment Daichi watched stunned speechless as the little omega hurried around gathering his things. Then Suga. Sweet, beautiful Suga, stepped in.

“W-wait Noya, I—where are you going?”

“Hmm? Oh sorry. My stock of Gari Gari Kun is running low. Gotta go bye! See youz tomorrow!”

He yelled the last bit as he ran out the door.

“Uh… did we miss something?”

Coach Ukai and Takeda san entered the gym a moment later both looking confused and a little worried to see their smallest member run out of the gym with still so much volleyball time left.

Daichi couldn’t blame Hinata for messing up a couple of times after that. Nishinoya’s run out had affected everyone, even Tsukishima seemed worried. Tanaka seemed to be twice as aggressive with his spikes as usual. Performance was spiking and dropping all over the place. But none was worse than Asahi. The big alpha was so distraught his pheromones were all over the place. Daichi even had to ask him to sit out because his scent was affecting their omegas’ performance. Yamaguchi had had to take a breather outside for goodness sake. And Hinata didn’t look too good.

To Daichi’s relief they managed to make it through practice without any more major mishaps, though Hinata had seemed to get more and more distant as the time went on. Daichi had been afraid the ginger omega might trip and fall or worse pull a Nishinoya and run off. But luckily nothing like that had happened and now that the gym had been packed and locked up Daichi finally felt a little tension leave him as Suga tugged him away as they said their goodbyes. They were a team, and together as a team they would find out what was wrong with Noya and fix it. 

As Hinata closed the door of his house he could smell the delicious smell of his favourite food, meat buns. But that hardly mattered to him right now. He felt horrible and every movement felt uncomfortable and tight. Was he going into heat? No. His heat had ended two weeks ago, and his heats were normally more painful. This felt more like a detached pain, like he was there but not. He made his way up to his room slowly careful not to fall. Wouldn’t do well to hurt himself on his birthday. He could vaguely make out his mother calling him but was too out of it to figure out what she was trying to tell him. He hurriedly opened the door sliding down to the floor when he made it. Ugh… his head hurt. And his vision was blurry. A figure came running at him. Long ginger hair, taller than him and pale skin.

“Mum?”

“I feel weird…”

The figure, his mum, reached over to lay a delicate hand on Hinata’s shoulder. And if he was being honest Hinata had been expecting a lot of things in that moment, because no matter how out of it he was, his mum was still his mum and when all was said and done, Ichika Hinata would always comfort her babies.

So yeah Hinata had been expecting quite a few things, a pat on the back followed by concerned little questions, a hug, a hand to the forehead, a worried ‘Shouyou’ or ‘darling’ uttered from rosy lips.

None of those things happened.

Because, Hinata realised, his mother was… smiling?

Why would she be smiling? Her smile was sweet, soft and loving. The kind that promised everything was okay. But how could it be okay? It certainly didn’t feel okay. Hinata was dragged out of his confusing thoughts by his mother’s words.

“Everything will be alright, honey. The discomfort will go away soon Shouyou.”

His mother’s words were soft, comforting and he couldn’t help but believe her.

“Aah!”

Just then a particularly strong feeling of tightness sprouted from his upper back. It was getting hard to breathe. His breaths became short and shallow. His shoulder muscles tensed unconsciously as his body prepared for something.

“Mum… what’s… going… on?” Hinata said in between pants.

“Almost done, honey… I promise. Oh, my little baby is growing up!”

She sounded teary to Hinata and that made her sound, well like a proud mum. Not that his mum had never sounded proud before, but this, this was different. She was acting like this was a serious milestone in his life.

Then… nothing.

No discomfort. No tightness. His head wasn’t pounding anymore, and his vision was clearing. His mother’s soft features filled his vision, her moth quirked into a happy (proud?) smile. But Hinata couldn’t focus on that, because it felt he was carrying a 50-kilo backpack. He hoped this feeling didn’t stick with him. How would he be the next Little Giant? He wouldn’t be able to receive Kageyama’s sets anymore. Hinata reached for his back and he felt something soft and smooth. His clothes? No. They seemed individual and they made him feel tingly, so he grabbed and…

“Ow!”

“Shouyou,” his mother chided. 

But he couldn’t be bothered to decipher that odd reaction, because there were feathers. In his hands. Feathers. On his back. Feathers that had hurt to pull out. There were feathers in his back. He sprung to his feet panicked, stumbling a little with the extra weight. 

Crash.

Glass. Now there was glass on the floor. How was there glass on the floor? His lamp, it had shattered. Someone had knocked it over. But no one was close enough… AND THERE WERE FEATHERS IN HIS BACK!

Quickly he spun around to look in the mirror… and he saw wings. Big, black bird’s wings. There were wings in his back. Disoriented he spun around and sent his volleyball memorabilia crashing to the floor.

“Shouyou honey, calm down. Everything is fine.”

Everything was not fine. He had wings. Real wings and he could feel them and touch which meant they were really there. This was not good. How was he going to play volleyball? Surely there was a rule against this sort of thing. He could knock someone out. The weight would ground him.

Just then Hinata’s door sprung open to reveal a man. His face was stern and eyes sharp, calculating. And he was staring right at Hinata as if he could see through him. Suddenly, he was next to Hinata, he had walked over in two quick strides.

“Ichika…”, the man nodded to Hinata’s mum. 

“Mum…?” Hinata’s voice was shaky even to him.

“It’s okay Shouyou,” she was still smiling. And it made him feel safe and nice inside, but this situation was anything but safe and nice. There was a strange alpha in his house and his mum  
was okay with it? Things weren’t making sense. 

He had wings. He was a freak. He would have to go to a school for freaks and make new friends. Were there even schools for freaks like him. He was a freak among freaks. That was the worse type. Before Hinata knew it there were big fat tears falling from his chin.  
The man was still looking at his mum. And his mum still wasn’t reacting like she should. And nothing made sense.

What was happening to him?


	3. Nishinoya and Hinata

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if characters are a bit OOC (out of character) I’m not good at capturing characters. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

Nishinoya was freaking out.

He had run out on volleyball. And all because of a stupid little insignificant pain in his chest. Though he had come up with a great excuse if he did say so himself. And now because of his stress eating, he really did have to go buy more Gari Gari Kun!

He was so stupid. He had been so sure no more dumb yokai stuff would happen after his inheritance, nothing should have happened. Up till then his abnormalities had more or less been under his control. Then again maybe that pain had had nothing to do with his nonhuman-ness, maybe it had been a normal human chest pain. But then that meant he might be sick. Or worse!

Nishinoya bit his lip as he got changed for school. This was getting too complicated. He sighed, for the millionth time he wished his mum was here. She would know what to do. Like him she had been a yokai. She would have loved him and raised him to be an amazing kickass yokai. But instead he was stuck here with his shitty relatives having to hide his abnormalities in his own house. How messed up was that. 

Nishinoya ate last night’s rice hurriedly and left the house. His aunt and uncle were both at work so apart from his cousin, who wasn’t up yet, he had the morning to himself to think. He walked slowly to school that day, not in a rush to be at practice. It was going to be awkward after that embarrassing miss in the gym yesterday.

I mean he was the libero! And he had missed such an easy receive. If the team couldn’t rely on him to save the easiest of balls, then what good was he on the team. They may as well cast him aside and get a new libero. He checked the time. Five minutes until practice starts officially. Normally, the omega was one of the first people to get there (behind Kageyama and Hinata of course, those two had way too much energy for people who sleep so little), he sped up, worried. What if they suspended him from the club, or worse… shit! With those thoughts in mind the small omega full out ran, surprising the alphas walking behind him. 

When he finally got to the gym, Nishinoya slammed the door open. Sweat was dripping from his chin and he was panting. But he was here and with one minute to spare. Take that time!

“I’m here! An—What the hell are you guys doing!?”

The omega was shocked. What the hell were his friends doing!? Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were sitting down the former listening to music. Suga and Asahi were also sitting down and weren’t doing anything, Daichi looked to be standing next to them also doing nothing. Ennoshita and Tanaka were standing off to the side of the net. The only one who even remotely looked like they were doing practice was Kageyama but even he wasn’t doing anything special. This was unbelievable. These same people had cried at the Interhigh because of their loss. Did they not want to win anymore? What the hell was going on?

“Noya ya little punk!”

Tanaka came running up to him and ruffled his hair. Immediately Nishinoya sprang out of the way. 

“What the hell Tanaka! Don’t mess up my hair, ya here me!”

Tanaka grinned.

“And you all,” he turned to face everyone else, “should be practicing! What has gotten into you all!”

“Well Noya… we were umm—you know what never mind,” Daichi tried to come up with something to say that would placate the riled up omega without using the lame, ‘we were worried about you excuse’.

“That’s not good enough! You guys should be mor—"

Asahi let out a sigh. Nishinoya was here. He was here and he was safe. 

He had been really worried yesterday when the omega had run out, not to mention he had missed the ball. Something must have been really wrong if Noya had missed the ball. Asahi could still remember the look on Nishinoya’s face; the look of unadulterated shock and, he shuddered, before that Noya had almost looked like he was in pain. It wasn’t a good look, and as far as Asahi was concerned the small omega should never have to look like that ever again. Then Noya hadn’t been there when he got here for practice, and that was really wrong. Noya was always one of the first ones here.

It had made Asahi really worried, something bad enough to make Nishinoya miss volleyball practice had to be really bad. And that pained expression, what if he was hurt and at home. What if the omega had been cornered by some alphas (and God if that didn’t make every protective instinct in him scream). His eyes darkened for a moment at the thought. Luckily, that hadn’t been the case because Noya was right here and (thank god) he seemed fine. In fact any traces of the omega’s uncharacteristic behaviour from yesterday had been erased.

“Hey wait a minute.”

Everyone turned to stare at the libero. Asahi tensed again. It was rare Nishinoya’s voice took a serious tone like that. Maybe something was wrong. 

“Where’s Hinata?”

The silence that followed that question was deafening.

Hinata. That’s right. Before Nishinoya had arrived, the entire volleyball team had been sitting around worried about both Nishinoya AND Hinata. The euphoria at Nishinoya’s arrival seemed to have vanished making the air heavy and tense again. Hinata was always first to arrive; it was either him or Kageyama with seconds of difference. Could something have happened to their excitable little omeg—

SLAM.

“I’m so sorry I’m late everyone! It won’t happen again I swear I—”

Blink. Blink. 

“Why aren’t you guys doing anything?”

The relief was palpable, both their missing omegas had arrived safe and sound. Though Kageyama refused to admit it, if something had happened to Hinata he would’ve been pretty upset.

“That’s exactly what I was asking Hinata,” Nishinoya all but yelled from across the gym, “guess they just can’t function without us.”

With that they both walked off to get changed. Annoyed, Kageyama stalked off to go practice his sets. How could those two idiots have distracted him from what was most important: volleyball.

Practice went by without anymore hiccups, in fact the team seemed to be playing better than ever. Kageyama smiled. Oikawa senpai was going down. His mood had of course been ruined by Hinata who claimed his ‘face was being scary again’. That idiot. Why couldn’t he understand it was just his face! 

The day was going smoothly too. It was lunch, and apart from Hinata spacing out a couple of times that day things were fine, he was still his bubbly idiotic self. Yeah, everything was well and good Hinata was talking about something or the other. Kageyama knew it was hopeless to try and stop the omega talking and if he didn’t want a fight he would just have to suffer through Hinata’s constant yapping (though I he was being honest it was kind of comforting to here him talk so animatedly). 

Then something strange happened.

Hinata stopped talking.

Kageyama looked off to the far end of the courtyard they had been crossing.

Someone had screamed.


	4. Cold and Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has content that may trigger some people, so please if you think it may affect you don’t read it (suicide warnings)

Everything was fine. Or everything should be. He was a yokai. A tengu, his mother had said; the crow yokai. And she was a kitsune, the fox shifter. Hinata had been shocked to find out yokai not only exist but lived among humans (and he was one of them, how cool!) 

Anyway, everything should have been fine now. Apparently, last night had been normal for yokai as their inheritance was kind of like the beginning of yokai puberty. Which sucked, Hinata couldn’t help but think, though on the bright side he might grow an inch or two. His wings were gone and the scary man had turned out to be nice and a super cool yokai teacher. But most importantly, Hinata could still play volleyball. 

So yeah, everything was great, well it would be if he wasn’t about to be late to practice. The omega was currently full out sprinting to make it to volleyball practice on time. He had never been this late! Or… well… not early. This was terrible, this time not training might be the difference between making it to nationals and not, and he was missing it! No, Hinata thought determined, he wasn’t late yet.

Hinata was panting, sweat trickled down the sides of his face, his sprint was becoming a sluggish run and his hair was plastered to his forehead, the tips blurring his vision. 

He was late now. A full minute had passed. A full minute late.

The omega felt like he was going to cry or be sick. He hadn’t felt this strongly since he had vomited on Tanaka in the bus, not to mention when he had hit Kageyama in the head with the ball. That may have been the scariest moment of his life. The alpha could be really scary when he wanted to be. Hinata shuddered at the thought.

The team would be so disappointed in him. Oh no. Would Kageyama be disappointed in him. Somehow the idea of the awkward alpha being disappointed in him wound him up more than the thought of being late. Hinata didn’t know why, but since the alpha had beat him in middle school he had started to care more and more about what he thought. It was instinct and Hinata didn’t ignore his instinct, so with the thought of a disappointed Kageyama in mind he sped up.

He was here and the team didn’t seem disappointed at all, in fact they looked relieved? The omega couldn’t see why. What was there to be relieved about? He glanced at Kageyama one more time, then again relief was much better than disappointment and Kageyama didn’t seem disappointed, so that was good. Satisfied, Hinata ran up to Kageyama.

“Hey Kageyama! Set for me!”

The small ginger had been telling Kageyama about how the super tasty meat buns he’d had this morning had helped him jump extra high like ‘fwup’ and hit the ball like ‘bam’ and—

“Aaaeegh.” A shrill shriek filled the air. It had come from his far right, towards the corner of the courtyard. Dread filled Hinata’s stomach. It felt as if someone had tipped a bucket full of ice on him. Then, as quickly as it had come the cold left him. Hinata stumbled a bit, panting. 

What had just happened? Had it just been him or…?

Lost in thought, it took the orange haired first year a while to realise someone had screamed and that he and Kageyama were just standing there. They needed to help! Someone was in trouble! They could be hurt! Or worse! Oh no, what if it was Daichi or Tanaka or Nishinoya or—agh! He was wasting time again.

“Hey Kageyama, let’s go che—hey! Wait up!”

Kageyama had disappeared through a throng of people.

Hinata ran after the alpha pushing through the crowds of milling people, ignoring the phantom cold he felt curled tight in his chest. 

Someone had screamed. He didn’t know who and he didn’t know where, but for some reason that scream had made Nishinoya feel like he had just jumped into a bath of freezing cold water. His insides seemed to freeze with the intensity. He swayed for a moment on his feet and stumbled when someone bumped into him. And just like that the cold left him, but a dull dread coiled around him.

He blinked.

What the hell was that?

His mind felt hazy and his thoughts were like mush. Someone had screamed. Someone had screamed and he had been cold. Someone had—had—

His eyes widened. Holy shit, someone had screamed!

Finally coming back to his senses, he ran in the direction the scream had come from, the dread seemed to tighten around him as he got closer. He knew he had found the scene of the, whatever-had-happened-here, because a crowd had gathered around the commotion.  
Nishinoya wasn’t surprised, half the school must have heard that scream. 

But who and why? 

It was grating on Nishinoya’s nerves, and he didn’t why. He felt jittery and uncomfortable and… anxious? Someone was in trouble and he needed to help. Nishinoya knew these were probably his omega instincts urging him to do these things. A beta or an alpha wouldn’t have felt compelled like an omega would, to care for those in need. 

It was a curse and a blessing.

But deep down It almost felt like more than the average omega instinct thing. Like there was another reason he felt drawn to the scene, but that was ridiculous, what other reason could he have apart from concern? It didn’t make sense. But one thing was certain, Nishinoya needed to get through the crowd to the source of the problem.

Nishinoya frowned, his eyebrows furrowed, the crowd was too tall to see over and too dense to see through. But he needed to know what was going on.

“Nishinoya, what’s going on?”

His frown deepened. That was weird it was almost like someone had been calling his name.

“Noya! Are you okay!?”

Nishinoya’s eyes widened. That sounded like… he spun around.

“Suga!”

He spun around to face a Suga, Daichi, Tanaka (when had he separated from him?), and Asahi! 

Suga looked concerned. Which was understandable, because if Nishinoya was an omega, Suga was a mega omega. His instincts must be screaming at him to help. And this crowd wasn’t doing them any favours, that’s for sure. 

Luckily the omega had a plan. A plan that was sure to get them to the heart of the problem. Turning to Asahi, Nishinoya knew there was no way it could fail. Without in mind he felt a familiar grin beginning to mold his features.

“Asahi. I need you!” 

Seemingly surprised by the omega’s outburst the timid alpha turned a bright shade of red. Nishinoya couldn’t help but stare fascinated at the alpha’s immediate change in demeanor, he was a red, sweaty sputtering mess. Was he sick? The small omega had never seen someone change color so quickly and for no reason whatsoever. 

Under normal circumstances Nishinoya would’ve asked what was wrong, and if it was contagious. But it wasn’t the time for that, not when all his instincts were screaming for him to get to the other side of that wall.

Anyway, minor setback in his plan, time to unleash plan B.

“Uh… never mind."

Nishinoya turned to Tanaka, “Tanaka, I need you, to elbow me to the other side of this people wall. 

Tanaka smirked, “Sure thing punk.”

If Nishinoya had been paying a little bit more attention to his surroundings, Nishinoya might have noticed Suga making a face, and he may have realized how bad of an idea it was to tell Tanaka to ‘elbow people out of the way’. 

If you asked Daichi this situation had not been good from the beginning.

As soon as he’d heard that scream, his alpha instincts had reared its head, telling him he had to get his pack, his omega to safety.

But Suga being the sweetheart he is immediately headed towards the scream, claiming someone might need his help. And Daichi really couldn’t blame him. The same way his instincts were screaming at him to protect, Suga’s were probably screaming at him to help. The logical part of Daichi knew this, he knew that omega’s were attracted to the hurt like moths to a flame, but the other part of Daichi couldn’t have his pack separated and he couldn’t have Suga wandering off without protection, so with Asahi in tow he chased after Suga.

Along the way Tanaka had joined them saying Nishinoya had run off once he’d heard the scream and that he couldn’t find him. This seemed to give Asahi a new resolve and soon they were all trying to find the person who’d screamed, because surely Nishinoya had done the same, and if finding the person who had screamed meant getting his pack together and within his sight then he would do it, no matter how much of a bad feeling this gave him.

Finally, they seemed to find densest crowd of people in the school, meaning this was the place. Nishinoya was also there to his (Asahi’s great relief). A huge weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, as pack leader Daichi had to protect all his pack mates and every pack member knew in stressful (potentially dangerous) situations like this it was bad for an omega to be on their own. Seriously, the small omega could have been seriously hurt! This was good for Suga too, as much as Suga would try to deny it, he had been getting anxious and stressed. And the best way to calm a frazzled omega was… well a trusted stable alpha or their mate, or the presence of another omega. This would no doubt apply to Nishinoya too.

Daichi knew he didn’t have to worry about Hinata as he would probably be with Kageyama and same with Yamaguchi and Tsukishima. Which left Nishinoya, whom they had (thankfully) found before he got him self in trouble or (the thought almost made Daichi growl) some sick alpha decided to take advantage of the omega’s no doubt frazzled state. 

So immediately, upon sighting Nishinoya, Suga called out to him. Something wasn’t right. Nishinoya was just standing there and… was he swaying. Frowning, Suga called out to him again.

“Noya! are you okay!?”

That seemed to have snapped the omega out of his reverie.

As they approached Daichi couldn’t help but scrunch his nose in distaste. The stench of distressed omega was strong. Too strong. Daichi didn’t like it. The last time he had smelt that was when they had lost the Interhigh. 

He distantly registered Noya calling Suga’s name. Asahi and Tanaka had run along with Suga to greet Nishinoya. Who now that Daichi looked over seemed more or less fine. Though he was making weird faces until he opened his mouth to say something.

“Asahi, I need you!”

Daichi had not been expecting that. And clearly neither had Asahi, his alpha friend was turning all shade of red before settling on a bright cardinal red. The alpha was sputtering out all sorts of gibberish, clearly trying to form a sentence. Daichi felt bad for him. He was aware of the crush the larger alpha harbored for the younger and he knew Nishinoya hadn’t meant anything by his outburst. He was just like that, saying what was on his mind. Though what he had meant by that phrase Daichi couldn’t be sure. Tanaka looked to be on the verge of laughing and Suga looked confused which made Daichi blush a little.

Nishinoya then turned to Tanaka, “Tanaka, I need you, to elbow me to the other side of this people wall.”

That sounded like a very bad idea to Daichi. Tanaka was a very aggressive alpha. Suga seemed to be having the same thoughts as him as his eyes widened in horror. And to Daichi’s horror, Tanaka answered, “Sure thing punk.”

With that the aggressive alpha barreled into the nearest people with Nishinoya quick on his heels. And of course Suga ran after them. Sighing and praying for his health, Daichi took one last glance at Asahi, who seemed to have passed out from overheating, and dashed after his idiotic packmates.

It was an odd sight, to say the least. Tanaka was elbowing anyone who was in his way, while Nishinoya clapped and cheered him on. Suga, bless him, was apologizing to everyone Tanaka was ungraciously elbowing out of the way, while trying to catch up with the idiot duo and make him stop. Daichi had followed his team to make sure no one (especially Suga) got hurt. They were causing quite the commotion.

When he finally caught up Suga was looking really pissed. Daichi inched back, he did not want to get on the omega’s bad side. Suga could really hit people when he wanted to.

“Tanaka! You…”

Suga hit Tanaka square in the stomach, knocking the wind out of the alpha. His hair was swept over his eyes making him look menacing and more than a little scary as the dark aura emanated from him.

“Idiot!” he finished as he looked up and began to scold.

“You can’t just go around hitting people, they could’ve been seriously hurt, and you Nishinoya, this is—” Suga trailed off.

The smaller omega was at the front of the crowd now, and he was looking down on something. Suga furrowed his eyebrows and inched closer to see what was going on. He stopped in his tracks. Now Daichi was worried, he glanced at Tanaka, but the other alpha looked just as clueless as he felt. 

Tanaka glanced at Suga and Noya, “Um, guys? What’s wrong? Guys?”

He and Tanaka inched towards the omega’s who seemed to be transfixed on something on the ground. He reached the front and… Oh My God. Daichi’s eyes widened and he could feel Tanaka tense from next to him.

“Oof. Aah. Sorry! Guys what are you…”

Asahi had finally managed to elbow his way through the crowd. Daichi turned to look at him, his face was the epitome of shocked, his eyes wide and horrified. 

Suddenly the stench of distressed omega made sense.

And so, did the scream.

And Daichi had known this situation was bad from the beginning.

Because in front of him, lying on the floor was a dead body.


	5. Distressed Omegas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may also trigger some people, so PLEASE if mentions of suicide may trigger you, do not read this chapter.

Nishinoya was reminded once again of his abnormalities, because somehow beyond a shadow of a doubt Nishinoya knew this death hadn’t been natural. Well not human natural anyway.

Someone or _something_ had killed this girl. And it was this revelation that had Nishinoya hoping it had been a normal suicide no strings attached. He heard a whimper to his left. Hinata looked like he’d just seen a ghost. The orange haired omega was holding on tightly to Kageyama’s arm, eyes wide and whole-body trembling. Nishinoya for his part was finding it hard to concentrate on his kouhai’s obvious distress as the dread from earlier started to seep back in, which now that Nishinoya thought about it seemed suspiciously supernatural in light of recent events.

Nishinoya was having a hard time concentrating on anything else as his omega distressed and the unnatural dread, he was feeling went from cold to scorching within the span of seconds. Then Nishinoya felt sadness, this girl, this innocent girl who had done nothing to warrant this was dead. And he hadn’t done anything, he should’ve done something. What was wrong with him? He was a failure of as a human, a failure as a yokai and a failure as a son. Did he always let people down like this? 

An unfamiliar weight settled itself on Nishinoya’s shoulder, bringing him out of his thoughts. It was a hand. The hand was cold against his overheated skin. But much appreciated. His torrent of emotions settled and left him feeling grounded in a weird sort of way. And the air… oh the air smelled good! Like pine wood and earth, it was familiar, but Nishinoya had never payed it any attention before. It smelled like… Asahi! The omega turned looked up at the big alpha.

“Noya… come on we need to get away from here,” the alpha was saying softly.

Nishinoya nodded dazed. Asahi was right. He did need to get out of there. But he couldn’t move, it was like some masochist side of him was keeping his feet planted and close to the girl’s body. Nishinoya was beginning to get frustrated.

“Nishi…?” 

Asahi’s soft gaze lingered on Nishinoya, a silent question.

“Asahi… I can’t… I—”

“Shh…”

Asahi’s voice was a low grumble now, comforting to the smaller omega. The alpha nodded letting Nishinoya know he understood.

Nishinoya was clearly distressed. And it pained Asahi to see him that way. His whole frame was shaking, the putrid smell of distressed omega wafting from him in bucket loads. His eyes were glued to the scene in front of him, eyebrows scrunched up in thought? Well whatever Nishinoya was thinking at a moment like this could not be good, and as his teammate it was Asahi’s job to stop it. What had happened to this girl was terrible, but the Karasuno volleyball team did not need its omegas stressing over it.

Upon reaching Nishinoya, Asahi place a hand on his shoulder. His shoulder was unnaturally hot, making the alpha wonder if Nishinoya was sick or something. He had seemed fine this morning. Though Nishinoya wasn’t one to make a big deal of any injuries and illnesses he may have. This wasn’t good, if Nishinoya was sick, this stressful environment could worsen his condition, but Asahi also knew that because he was sick, Nishinoya may not fully understand was going on. He had to be careful or this could go very wrong. Putting a bit more pressure on Nishinoya’s shoulder, Asahi sent out some calming pheromones confident that a pack mate’s scent would calm him down and hopefully ground him enough to get them both out of there.

It worked, almost instantly the smell of distressed omega surrounding him dimmed and Nishinoya relaxed into his grasp. The omega’s eyes met with his. He looked distraught, which wasn’t anything Asahi hadn’t been expecting, but damn was it heart breaking when those damn eyes of his looked at him like that! Barely restraining himself from hugging the omega to death, Asahi willed his voice to a soft low tone to pull the omega in further.

“Noya… come on we need to get away from here.”

Asahi squeezed his shoulder once more for reassurance. Nishinoya seemed to get what he had said as he nodded, though he hadn’t looked all there when performing the gesture, which hadn’t been reassuring. The omega may be more overcome by instinct than he had initially thought.

“Nishi…?”

Asahi made sure to keep his voice soft, posing a silent question, trying to get a grasp of the omega’s mental state.

The voice that left those rosy soft lips of Noya’s grated on Asahi’s nerves. Noya should never have to sound like that. He sounded weak, vulnerable. And he looked torn.

“Asahi… I can’t… I—”

He couldn’t take anymore, swiftly he pulled Nishinoya to him, he was trembling worse now. Asahi shushed him, it was apparent Nishinoya couldn’t bring himself to leave, so Asahi would have to do it for him. Slowly, while still holding the omega tight to him, Asahi began to move away from the all the drama. Then some idiot ran past them, bumping into Asahi on the way, eliciting another whimper from Nishinoya. Asahi growled protectively.

“What’s going on here? Who screamed?”

It was the vice-principal. 

The sobs and cries got louder. “My friend, Kaia, she—she, I told her not to i—it was l-like she couldn’t—couldn’t hear me!”

Everything seemed to have frozen in anticipation of the girl’s next words.

“She—she,” another heart wrenching sob tore from the girl’s throat, “she… she jumped!”

Asahi paled holding on to Nishinoya tighter, he had known it had probably been suicide, but hearing said out loud, it really shook the alpha. But he couldn’t be thinking about that right now, because if it was getting to him, Nishinoya and the other omegas must have been really freaking out. With that thought in mind Asahi guided Nishinoya away from the throng of people, until he spotted Daichi and Suga along with Tanaka and Ennoshita. It looked like Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, as well as Kiyoko, Kageyama and Hinata had also met up with everyone else. Gently grabbing Nishinoya’s wrist, Asahi guided him to them. 

“Asahi! Nishinoya! You’re okay!” Suga ran up to them giving them both a big hug. The omega seemed more or less fine much to Asahi’s relief, and other than Hinata looking a little shaken up it seemed like everyone else was fine too. Suga led Nishinoya to the rest of the pack, the shorter omega looked better too, his strides were becoming steadier and his scent was clearing. From afar Asahi could see that paramedics had arrived, no doubt to carry that poor beta away. 

What could have driven that girl to suicide? And to think it had happened right here at the school, in broad day light. It was unsettling to the big alpha. It didn’t feel right.

It was safe to say that Hinata’s day was not going to plan. Something had happened. Well, something more than the suicide. Now Hinata was expert on deaths and methods, but he was sure that had not been a suicide. It just hadn’t. The energy around that girl—Kaia had not been right. Hinata shivered at the thought, it had been evil and… and unnatural. Hinata had been scared for his friends. What if whatever happened to that girl happened to one of them? 

Luckily, just then, Nishinoya and Asahi came back at that exact moment, so his thoughts couldn’t spiral too far out of control. Apart from Nishinoya senpai looking a little shaken and pale, they both looked fine, which was a relief.

Crck. Crck.

Hinata looked up, the school speakers were crackling. 

“Attention everyone, the school day will continue on as usual, we would like to ask everyone to please go to their last class of the day as lunch seems to have cut into your fifth period. Thank you.”

Like a switch had been flicked, the whole crowd began to disperse, a few lingering to watch the drama unfold. Paramedics were putting the body on to a stretcher, standing up Hinata tried to get a last look before they covered her face. Earlier when Hinata had caught up to Kageyama and gotten over the initial shock of a dead body, he had noticed something. A glimpse of something on that girl’s face, like a tattoo, before that girl’s friend had gotten in the way of his vision. Whatever it was it seemed to have vanished, because Hinata hadn’t seen it again.

Hinata brought his attention Daichi, who had stood up and was saying something.

“This event has taken a toll on every single one of us and your health is my main concern, right now. So, I completely understand if some of you may want to skip practice for today and—”

“Eh!”

Everyone looked over to Hinata.

“How could you say that Daichi! We can’t skip practice!”

“The idiot’s right!” Kageyama shouted, ignoring Hinata’s loud, ‘hey!’

Daichi sweat dropped, “You gotta see where I’m coming from guys, I just I’d give you the ok to go straight to the comfort of your homes after school,” Daichi tried to placate the first years.

“But volleyball is comforting!”

“You got that right punk!”

“I think,” Suga came up behind Daichi, “that you’ve lost this one Daichi. Besides Hinata’s right volleyball will get us all back to normal,” Suga smiled sweetly.

“I quite agree with Suga, Daichi san, it seems to me that volleyball would be the best remedy and it will keep us all together.”

“You’re so right Kiyoko san!” 

Even Nishinoya was back to normal.

“Well… If you guys think it’s best, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Daichi grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter wasn't much.


	6. Kazuo Suzuka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of suicide.

Hinata was not happy. It was finally time to go to volleyball practice. Kageyama had gone on ahead because as an omega, Hinata had to stay back in listen to this counselor guy talk about today and reassure them everything was going to be okay. Hinata found this quite boring and annoying, he just wanted to go play volleyball already!

Finally, the teacher let them go and Hinata was happy to see he wasn’t the only disgruntled omega after that. Luckily, he could wallow in the fact that surely Yamaguchi, Nishinoya and Suga had been held back too, so he wouldn’t have to be last to arrive. With that in mind the ginger omega hurriedly made his way to the gym.

“Hey… hey!”

Hinata looked behind him, some guy was running after him, holding a phone out. Wait a minute, he squinted a little, that was his phone! Abruptly, Hinata stopped walking, waiting up for the guy. And woah the guy tall, Hinata did not like the idea of how short he’d look standing next to this guy. As he got closer Hinata could make out more of his features, he was tall with dark hair and purple highlights, and his eyes were… purple? That was so cool! 

“You walk fast,” the guy smiled coming to a stop next to Hinata, “this is your phone, right?”

He held out Hinata’s phone. Hinata grinned up at him taking the phone. 

“Yep! Sorry I don’t even know where I lost it. Well, thanks!”

With that Hinata turned to continue on his way to practice, pocketing his phone as he went. 

“Hey wait up!”

The tall guy ran to catch up, walking in stride with Hinata. Hinata tilted his head curiously to look up at him. 

“I’m Kazuo,” the guy—Kazuo smiled down at him.

Hinata smiled back. This guy seemed nice, and he was always up for making new friends.

“I’m Hinata!”

“Wasn’t that ‘suicide’ today so freaky?”

Hinata didn’t really want to talk about that. But the way he’d said ‘freaky’ like it had more meaning than what most people would use the word for and the way he had said ‘suicide’, had piqued Hinata’s interest. 

“Freaky, how?” 

Kazuo smirked and looked down amused at Hinata, who frowned in response. They had reached the gym and Hinata could hear the sound of balls being spiked and hitting the ground. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave this conversation, this guy knew more about that girl’s death. 

“You wanna know?”

Hinata blinked in surprise. Kazuo’s demeanor had changed completely. His tone had gone from light and conversational to down right conspiring. And why was he so willing to share information with him. Hinata was nothing special, Kazuo had never even known his name before today. Right?

Maybe there was more to this. His mum had said now that he was sixteen people may start wanting things from him, because of his omega status. And this guy did look like an alpha.

But he might know something. Besides he was right outside the gym. If anything were to happen Hinata could call for help.

Curiosity winning over his suspicions. Almost imperceptibly, the ginger omega nodded. Kazuo full out grinned, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to a secluded area on the side of the gym. He looked behind him, and apparently concluding that they were alone turned back to Hinata appraisingly. Hinata glanced down at his wrist still encircled by Kazuo’s hand. Then Kazuo leaned in, so that his mouth was centimeters away from his right ear. His breath ghosting over his ear, made an shiver go up Hinata’s spine.

“Well… you know, that death wasn’t all that natural, don’t you think?”

Hinata’s eyes widened. That had been what he had been thinking at the time… but how could there have been anything unnatural about it? It didn’t make sense. As far as Hinata could tell, Kaia’s friend hadn’t seen anyone behind her when she jumped.

“Wh—what do you mean?”

Hinata whispered trying not to break the silence that had followed Kazuo’s insinuation. 

Kazuo leaned back a little and opened his mouth.

“That wasn’t a normal suicide.”

Kazuo said that so matter of fact, that Hinata found it hard to doubt him, and he had thought the same thing…

“Oi! What are you doing!”

Nishinoya had been on his way to the gym for practice. That suicide earlier had really rattled him, not that he appreciated being kept in a classroom to have some stranger talk to him about his feelings. He hadn’t even been there! Obviously, it that had been school wide for omegas, as he saw them leaving in groups from their classroom. 

Nishinoya sighed. That ridiculous waste of time had not only made him feel worse. But it had kept him from the one thing that would probably make him feel better. As Nishinoya was nearing the gym he froze. This was bad, this was really bad. A really big alpha dude was cornering Hinata on the side of the gym. If Noya was thinking rationally he would have realized what a really bad idea going up to them was, but all he could think was ‘how dare he!’.

“Oi! What are you doing!”

 _To my poor innocent kouhai_ was left unsaid, but Nishinoya hoped that the message was conveyed. 

“Nishinoya senpai!” a wide eyed Hinata called out.

The other guy, however, smirked down at him, because of course he was infuriatingly tall (and kind of handsome). 

“Oh, hey there shorty, I was just gonna go find you after finishing my chat here with carrot-top.”

Shorty! The nerve of that guy! How dare he call him short! It wasn’t his fault the guy was abnormally tall. So lost in his thoughts, Nishinoya did not notice until it was too late that the guy had reached over and grabbed his arm, pulling him further into the dark space to the side of the gym.

“You have great timing shorty; I would’ve had to make separate trips otherwise.”

Nishinoya pulled on is arm, trying to get out of this even worse situation. 

“What do you want with us?”

Nishinoya glared up at the tall guy.

“Nishinoya! Kazuo knows somethings about the suicide!”

Nishinoya stopped struggling and blinked. Kazuo? The suicide?

“He says that it wasn’t normal.”

Nishinoya was not expecting his exact thoughts on the death to be mirrored by this strange guy—Kazuo. 

“Wait… how do you know that?”

Kazuo let go of Nishinoya’s arm, backing up an inch. 

“My grandpa is Hiroto Suzuka, the name’s Suzuka Kazuo.”

Kazuo was grinning proudly now, pointing to himself like he was the answer to all their problems. 

“EH!” the two omegas exclaimed loudly.

“Be quiet! You two want the whole world to know?!” Kazuo whispered urgently, moving closer to them and moving his index finger to his lips; the universal ‘be quiet’ sign.

Hiroto Suzuka was a yokai but why was his grandson here. Nishinoya had already told him when he had inherited that he couldn’t train with him like all the other recently inherited yokai and he hadn’t seen him since. So why send his grandson now? And why was he saying these things in front of Hinata!

“You’re Hiroto sensei’s grandson? He came to my house yesterday! That means you’re a yokai” Hinata also began whispering.

“When you inherited right?” Kazuo smiled knowingly.

Nishinoya couldn’t even express his surprise anymore. He felt like his brain was short circuiting. Hinata was a yokai? He had inherited yesterday? It made sense, Hinata hadn’t been his best yesterday in practice, before he had run off. Thinking it was time to speak up, Nishinoya turned to Hinata.

“Wait… wait… you two are yokai?”

Hinata’s eyes widened comically. He seemed to have forgotten that the other omega was here. 

“Oh no, I thought we had to keep us a secret,” Hinata whispered to Kazuo, as if Nishinoya wasn’t right there, and couldn’t hear every word. Oh, his poor sweet, kouhai was not good at this. 

Kazuo smirked. Nishinoya narrowed his eyes, the bastard was enjoying this.

“Don’t worry carrot-top, we only have to keep us a secret from _humans_.”

Kazuo’s smirk widened as Hinata tilted his head, confused, yep that bastard was really enjoying this. 

The moment that Hinata realized what Kazuo was saying, would’ve been comical, had it not been revealing Nishinoya to one of his newly presented teammates. The omega’s eyes widened so much it looked like they might pop out of his sockets, his mouth forming an ‘oh’ shape as he turned to Nishinoya.

“EH!”

This exclamation was louder than Nishinoya and Hinata exclaiming together.

“Nishinoya senpai, you’re a yokai!”

It wasn’t a question.

Nishinoya smiled weakly.

“Uh… yeah…”

“Hence why I’m speaking to both of you,” Kazuo cut in.

That’s right, this jerk wanted something.

“The point is, that suicide wasn’t natural, and you both felt it.”

Nishinoya and Hinata shared a look.

“You wanna know what happened to that girl? Wanna make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else?”

Kazuo’s gaze was piercing now, and most terrifying of all, deadly serious. At the same time Nishinoya and Hinata nodded, signaling for him to keep talking.

“Good then…” 

He leaned in closer. Nishinoya held his breath in anticipation.

“mee—”

“Is something going on here?”

Swiftly, Kazuo turned around, giving Nishinoya a clear view past his shoulder.

It was Asahi.


	7. Misunderstandings

Asahi thought it was rather stupid of the school to hire counselors to lecture the omegas. He and Daichi had been reluctant to leave Suga. But the omega had insisted that he’d meet them there. They met Kageyama on the way. Apparently the first-year omegas were being kept in as well, which meant that Nishinoya would probably also be late to practice (well late by his standards). Asahi chuckled fondly; the small omega was probably outraged at being held back.

He, Daichi and Kageyama were the first to be there followed by, Tanaka, Narita and Kinoshita. Having set up and changed already the six boys decided to do some warmup drills, while waiting for the other half of their team to arrive. Asahi was well into his spiking when he heard the door click open, perking up at the prospect of it being Nishinoya, he swiftly looked over.

He was disappointed to see that it was only coach Ukai and Takeda san. He quickly turned back to continue his spiking, glad for once it wasn't Suga setting to him. If the omega had been here right now, he would probably be smirking that knowing smirk of his. 

“Ugh! Don’t tell those counselors have still got our omegas. We need them to be practicing if we ever want to make it to Nationals.” 

Coach looked annoyed, as he glanced around the gym, concluding that ‘yes’ the counselors still had the omegas and ‘no’ they were not practicing for the Spring prelims. 

“Don’t worry Ukai san, I’m sure they’ll be arriving soon,” Takeda placed a placating hand on Coach’s shoulder, which seemed to calm him down a little.

Click.

“Sorry we’re late Coach,” Suga walked, followed by Yamaguchi and Tsukishima.

The alpha must have decided to wait for Yamaguchi. Coach nodded to Suga and the new arrivals as they hurried to get changed and start practice. It was a couple of minutes later when Ennoshita showed up.

“Ennoshita! Where the hell have you been?”

Tanaka greeted as he flung himself toward their latest arrival. Ennoshita rolled his eyes, clearly used to their second-year spiker’s behaviour.

“I was at the omega counsel orientation if you really need to know, now let me go so I can go change.”

His statement was followed by silence, Suga looked about ready to burst with excitement, and Tanaka had frozen, shocked, mid hug. Narita and Kinoshita’s mouths had fallen open, not to mention Daichi and Coach had stopped the conversation they had been having to stare. Even Kageyama had stopped setting to himself to give Ennoshita a bewildered look.

Asahi had to admit he was shocked too. Ennoshita, who would’ve thought. The guy was an open book, Asahi would never have picked him for an omega; with all their whirlwind of emotions and their sweet intoxicating fruity scents. Asahi watched as Tanaka awkwardly let go of Ennoshita, shuffling backwards stiffly, still looking dumbfounded, while Ennoshita looked confused.

“Well… I didn’t see that coming,” Tsuki raised one delicate eyebrow at Tanaka as if to call him an ‘idiot’ and walked away to put his shoes on. Everyone seemed to snap out of their thoughts after that, Yamaguchi hurriedly followed after the blonde and Kageyama went back to setting. It was easy for them. They had only known Ennoshita a couple of months, being first years, but Asahi was feeling like an absolute failure of a pack alpha. He had never, not once offered Ennoshita any type of comfort he would normally offer Suga or Nishinoya (when he worked up the courage to).

He was interrupted from his thoughts by Suga’s delighted squeal, as he wrapped his arms around Ennoshita’s neck, pulling him close. 

“I didn’t know you were an omega Ennoshita kun!”

Asahi sweat dropped. Being blunt and straight forward was Nishinoya’s thing, Suga had always been a little more… tactful in his speech. The trait had always been endearing on Nishinoya, but when Suga did it, it was darn right suspicious. He was up to something. Though Asahi couldn’t see what.

“Um… well I suppose I don’t go telling everyone my secondary gender, Suga san,” Ennoshita replied bluntly. Suga smirked evilly, still hugging Ennoshita he turned to face Tanaka.

“Did you know Tanaka?”

Ah. That’s what Suga was up to. It was obvious to anyone that had been watching, that Tanaka had had no clue. Ennoshita turned to Tanaka tilting his head. Suga had used his ‘innocent’ question to evoke Ennoshita’s natural omega curiosity. What a crafty little bastard. Asahi could feel Tanaka’s pain, Suga had tried countless times to set him up with Nishinoya, to Asahi’s embarrassment and the small omega’s confusion. Asahi thanked the lord, that Nishinoya was such a clueless person. 

Tanaka tensed up, his face turning a little red? Was he blushing? 

“No. I did not know,” Tanaka answered robotically, it was so unlike Tanaka, Asahi almost cringed.

Ennoshita scrunched up his eyebrows

“Well, I am an omega… and I’m gonna go change now.”

He had looked very confused by Tanaka’s answer. Not wanting to get caught up in Suga’s ploy, Asahi turned back to Kageyama to resume his spiking, when…

“EH!”

He missed the ball by a couple of centimeters and landed on his feet with a thud. Everyone froze, that was the second scream in one day, and although this one didn’t sound quite as bad as the first, it still put Asahi on edge. Everyone seemed stuck on what to do, should they go see what was wrong and risk getting themselves stuck in a situation like at lunch, or should they stay inside and ignore it? Then, Suga started walking towards the door. 

“Suga,” Daichi ran after him grabbing his wrist and halting his movement. Suga looked back confused, and definitely worried. It was happening again. This was exactly how it had happened last time. Making up his mind, Asahi definitely thought it was best to stick together and stay in their pack.

“Everything’s okay everyone. So, everybody stay calm, do not separate,” Takeda san stepped in to handle the situation. Daichi nodded along with Takeda san and looked to Suga again.

“We can’t stay put!”

“Suga,” Daichi spoke softly and clearly, “I know you want to go help whoever’s in trouble, but Takeda san is right we need to stick together.”

“But Daichi! Nishinoya and Hinata aren’t here yet. I need to go find them!”

Daichi froze, realizing the urgency in the situation. Nishinoya and Hinata should have been here ages ago, all the other omegas were. Panic surged through Asahi at the thought of Nishinoya or Hinata being involved with that scream. He tore past Daichi and Suga and rushed out the door, sensing Daichi’s presence behind him. The scream had come from very close to the gym, almost as if it were right next to it.

Asahi rushed past the front wall of the gym and came to a standpoint when the side wall of the gym came into view. What he saw made his blood boil, some rando alpha had Nishinoya AND Hinata cornered and pressed up against the wall. 

From behind him he heard Daichi yelling at the guy and asking him what he was doing. He sounded just as angry as Asahi felt. The guy spun around looking surprised, then he grinned. This only served to further infuriate him, how _dare_ this guy act like he wasn’t just trying to assault their omegas. What kind of douchebag alpha was this, did he not care about the consequences of his actions on his victims? Daichi growled from behind him, obviously not liking this guy’s behaviour either, angry pheromones were coming from him in waves, and Asahi was sure the same could be said about him.

The alpha’s expression changed instantly upon catching whiff of the angry alphas’ angry scents. He looked shocked and cautious. Good, Asahi thought, he should be cautious. 

“Woah, dudes, why’re youz so angry? I thought you all were friends,” he glanced from Nishinoya and Hinata to Daichi and him. His alpha growled inside, how dare that bastard look at his omega, after what he’d done.

Then his words registered to Asahi, and… well they didn’t make sense. What did that have to do with anything? Was he trying to distract them so he could make a getaway? Asahi glanced at the two short omegas, they didn’t look traumatized or angry, they looked… confused?

“And a friend of shorty’s is a friend of mine?” he finished uncertainly.

At that moment Nishinoya seemed to snap out of his silence.

“I’m not short you bastard!”

Nishinoya seemed completely comfortable with talking to this alpha and he hadn’t exactly seen the alpha do anything… oh. Asahi quickly turned sheepish as he put two and two together. This alpha—whoever he was, had not tried to assault Nishinoya and Hinata and his anger had been completely unfounded. This was so embarrassing.

Asahi could only thank the gods that it was only Daichi, Suga and him who had come out, Takeda san must have kept the others in (if Tanaka had been here then go help that alpha, Tanaka was all about ‘act now, ask questions later). 

“Oh, um… sorry we thought you… were…” Asahi was getting more and more flustered, he could feel heat rising to his face.

“Doesn’t matter, no harm done. I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding. Anyways, my time here is up, I’ll see you guys around!”

He turned to leave past Asahi who was still sputtering out apologies and explanations. 

“Hey, what about what you were gonna say before…”

The alpha smirked slyly, “I’ll see you two at the big Maidenhair tree in the park. I’ll tell you there!”

With that the alpha turned and ran. Hinata looked annoyed.

“You can’t just say things like that and run off,” he called after the strange alpha’s retreating form, a pout forming on his lips. 

Suga was very confused. What had just happened? Apart from Nishinoya still looking a bit disgruntled from being called short, both his kouhais looked fine and unharmed. But then why had they been hiding off the side of the gym. It didn’t make sense, but Suga couldn’t dwell too much on it, all that mattered was that his pack would soon be reunited. 

He looked over to Daichi, he seemed to have gone back to normal too, it had been really scary when Daichi had released his angry pheromones, combines with Asahi’s pheromones, Suga had almost been overwhelmed. It was really uncharacteristic for the big gentle alpha to lose control like that, he must have been really upset to see two of the pack’s omegas in that position with that strange alpha. But Suga had to admit, if he didn’t already ship Nishinoya and Asahi, Noya and that other alpha would have made a nice couple. Wild on wild.

Suga watched fondly as Hinata realized how much of volleyball he had missed, then went on the apologise to Asahi for ‘making him angry’ before grabbing Nishinoya’s wrist and dragging him to the gym entrance. Asahi, the big lug, raced after them, trying to explain himself, and how he wasn’t angry at them.

Suga placed a hand on Daichi’s shoulder and walked side by side with him as they watched the three in front of them, make a mess of the situation.

“Then who were you angry at Asahi san?” Hinata tilted his head curiously. 

“No one! I—um… well you see… it’s—um complicated, and—”

Nishinoya smirked playfully. 

“Well it was really scary Asahi, never took you for the big manly macho alpha type.”

Asahi turned a nice shade of red and started sputtering out excuses as Hinata laughed at his face.

Suga smiled, all felt normal again, he just hoped it would stay that way.


	8. Witches?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated in a while. This chapter isn't much but I wanted to get something up.

Hinata was distracted all through practice. He kept glancing at Nishinoya and then out the window and he barely paid Kageyama any attention. It was pissing him off. He was the one setting to Hinata, and Hinata should be focused on _him_. 

Kageyama didn’t know why it bothered him, but ever since the third years had come back with Nishinoya and Hinata, and Kageyama had found out the idiot had been late because of some _guy_ , Kageyama had been angry at every little thing.

Click.

Kageyama stopped setting, Kiyoko had just walked in, with a girl hiding behind her back. Kageyama tilted his head, Hinata walked up to stand beside him.

“You found a new person!” the idiot exclaimed from beside him.

The girl (probably an omega) looked really scared. She was trembling and standing beside Kiyoko as if to use her for a human shield.

The rest of the team gathered around to see what it was Kiyoko wanted to tell them.

“Everyone this is Yachi, she may be the club’s new manager.”

Kiyoko smiled back at her encouragingly. The girl—Yachi left her hiding place behind Kiyoko, still trembling she introduced herself as ‘Hitoka Yachi’. 

As a flick had been triggered, Suga immediately went to congratulate Kiyoko, which had everyone else doing it too. Kageyama personally didn’t get it. What was the big deal? She had found someone to replace her as was natural for the responsible third year that Kiyoko was.

Then Asahi approached her, “You’re a first year?”

This seemed to have her spooked since she immediately went rigid and started addressing Asahi as ‘sir’. And Kageyama couldn’t blame her, Asahi really did look like a hooligan. And since she was probably an omega, Asahi really wasn’t the first alpha that should be greeting her.

“It’s good, now the volleyball club will have a manager next year too,” Asahi smiled at her.

This seemed to make the girl panic more, as she started waving her hands around as if to say something.

Then Kiyoko stepped in and quickly explained the situation, telling them how, Yachi hadn’t joined officially and was only checking the club out on her way to the membership committee. Hastily, Yachi bowed urging them to do the same in greeting. But that was apparently the wrong thing to do as they were ‘crowding her’. The girl left soon after, which didn’t bother Kageyama too much since he needed to get back to setting. Kiyoko san went on to give an inspiring speech, which had that idiot Hinata going red as a tomato and those weird second years Tanaka and Nishinoya balling their eyes out. It was ridiculous to be frank, and Kageyama didn’t have time for it, so he grabbed Hinata by the arm and pulled him to the net.

“Come on idiot we need to practice.”

… …

Nishinoya walked outside the gym. Although he wouldn’t admit it, he had been really anxious to leave and meet with Kazuo. He did not want what happened to that girl to happen to anyone else, least of all his friends. They were all he really had, and all things considered, he wouldn’t want his family to get caught up in this somehow. They were so painfully human it was hard imagining them getting caught up in yokai business. Which is exactly why Nishinoya was not going to tell them where he was going. He’d be in and out of the park in ten minutes, and it wasn’t even _that_ late.

As they reached the intersection, Hinata and him split off from their normal paths, it was an unspoken agreement, they would be arriving together and leaving together. 

“Welp! We’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Nishinoya said cheerfully, waving goodbye to everyone.

“Wait, Nishinoya!”

The small omega looked up at Suga. He looked worried.

“You’re not really gonna go to meet that guy, are you?”

“Of course we are Suga.”

“Cause I don’t know about you, but he seemed pretty shady, and whatever he said couldn’t have got you that curious, I mean can’t you wait till tomorrow _morning_.”

Oh. 

“We could come with you if you like,” he pointed to himself, Daichi and Asahi. Nishinoya sweat dropped, he couldn’t imagine what the timid alpha could do if Kazuo ever decided to 'pull' anything, Asahi may look badass, but he was a harmless puppy on the inside. Though he had gotten pretty scary earlier when they were with Kazuo. Almost as scary as Daichi. Nishinoya shivered, it was scary just thinking about angry Daichi. 

Noticing everyone had stopped to hear his answer, Nishinoya was hasty to reply.

“Nah. That’s alright Suga. Me and Hinata will be fine.”

Suga didn’t look convinced though, in fact he looked like he was about to go into a rant about all the reasons _why_ two omegas can’t go to the park to meet with an alpha alone (which Nishinoya already knew. He wasn’t stupid!). Anyway, Nishinoya needed to save this conversation before it went down a path nobody wanted it to go.

Lightning fast he took a hold of Hinata’s arm.

“Welp, we’ll see you guys at practice tomorrow. Bye!”

“BYE!”

He heard Hinata echo, but Nishinoya didn’t look back to see if anyone was expressing their farewells too, he bolted, dragging Hinata behind him, only letting go when he was sure they had lost Suga and the others. Gosh Suga could be such a mom!

But he couldn’t be too critical. Nishinoya knew that if Hinata was going to meet some guy alone in the park, he would be protective too. But to be fair who wouldn’t! No decent person would let his poor clueless kouhai go to the park alone at this hour, much less to meet an _alpha_.

Nishinoya looked up as he was walking, the moon was almost full. He smiled, even when he was young, he had always found it nice to just stare at the moon, the soft glow caressing his features. It had always looked so pretty up there in the sky, much prettier than the sun anyway, which he could never look at without tearing up. 

“Nishinoya senpai! There’s the tree!”

Hinata ran ahead of him, stopping at a huge Maidenhair tree. Nishinoya looked around, there was no Kazuo in sight. Where was he? Coming to a stop in front of the tree, Nishinoya leaned against the tree ready to wait for that jerk ass Kazuo. Honestly, how dare he be late. Nishinoya oughta give him a piece of his mind when he got here.

“Nishinoya senpai…” Hinata came stand beside him, “what do you think happened to that girl? You don’t think it was suicide, do you.”

The last question wasn’t a question per se. It was obvious neither of them truly believed that girl had died of suicide, otherwise they would not be here waiting for Kazuo to tell them what really happened.

“No Hinata, I don’t think it was suicide, and I don’t know what happened. But I do remember feeling cold as soon as a I heard that girl scream,” Nishinoya wrinkled his nose remembering the unpleasant feeling, “it felt like I had been submerged in freezing water, like—like I was void of good emotions.”

Nishinoya looked up from his feet to face Hinata and was puzzled to find him looking at him with his eyes impossible wide.

“That happened to me as well!”

Nishinoya furrowed his eyebrows, “What happened to you?”

“The cold! It was cold for me too, then it went away, and I remember thinking ‘this isn’t natural’ and—”

“That’s because it’s not.”

Kazuo hopped down from the Maidenhair.

Nishinoya blinked in disbelief, “You were there the whole time?!”

“Eh! Kazuo kun how did you get up there?”

“Well carrot top, I got tired of waiting for you two to finish volleyball practice so I decided to climb the tree,” Kazuo replied with his annoying smirk.

“So…” Nishinoya raised an eyebrow.

Kazuo turned to him, “So what?”

Nishinoya’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance, “So are you going to tell us what’s going on. Who or what killed that girl? Was it a yokai? Will it happen again? Should we be worried?”

“Alright, alright. I’ve made you wait long enough. But before I tell you I want both of you to calm down, don’t want either of you having a panic attack okay?”

Shit was it that bad. Nishinoya had not been expecting Kazuo’s demeanour to shift so suddenly. Where the alpha had been slumped and light-hearted before, he was now standing at his full height, his expression stoic and his body tensed. He felt Hinata move closer to his side and he couldn’t help but be glad that he didn’t have to through this alone. Unlike when he inherited. 

Kazuo sighed, averting his gaze, he seemed to be gathering himself up before delivering the bad news. And all at once he looked up, purple eyes bright and intense, and it almost had Noya recoiling at the ferocity of the alpha’s stare.

“Look I’m not going to sugar coat things. It’s bad. This is the work of a witch.”

Nishinoya narrowed his eyes, looking at Kazuo for any sign of deceit. This was getting ridiculous. Yokai and spirits were all well and good, but witches? They were beginning to head into fairy-tale territory now. And Nishinoya had stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.

“So…” 

Nishinoya turned to Hinata questioningly.

“That girl was attacked and killed by a witch? And… that’s really bad?”

“You’re obviously imagining those ugly old ladies with the warts and the broomstick that humans have cooked up to explain the paranormal.” Kazuo eyes Hinata dryly, “That is not it. Witches are far worse than that, and the cause for lot grief in the world.”

“Indeed.”

Nishinoya knew that voice. He turned shocked to see the one and only yokai teacher in the district.

Hiroto Suzuka had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm expecting to start getting into the more magical girl aspects of this crossover soon.  
> Just a heads up the next chapter is probably just explaining witches and their history.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically this and the next chapter will be explaining my take on the witches from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. So if you are a fan of the magical girl show it is not following on exactly what a witch is.

Hinata was not feeling good about this. The way Kazuo had said ‘witch’ as if they weren’t just crabby old magic ladies who _didn’t exist_.

“Indeed.”

Hinata almost jumped out of his skin. Standing behind him was the man who had come to his house the night before. Suzuka san looked grave, dark eyes serious and jaw set. He looked like someone had just told him he couldn’t play volleyball ever again! This must be really bad. 

Kazuo for his part looked shocked to see his uncle, as if he didn’t live in Miyagi Prefecture just like him. He had told him himself yesterday, that he was the only yokai teacher for miles. For the first time Hinata wondered if Kazuo lived in Miyagi Prefecture also. Maybe his parents lived here too, or maybe he lived with his uncle. That would be cool, he must be really smart if he lived with a teacher.

“Uncle! What are you doing here? I thought you had a meeting with the Tokyo Yokai Council.”

“Yes, I did but when you texted me and told me that you were meeting with Hinata and Nishinoya I knew I had to be there.”

Hinata was more than a little baffled. Suzuka san had to leave his super important meeting to come see them? AND he was not the anciently awesome yokai teacher who knew nothing about technology that Hinata had thought he was. Texting? Hinata couldn’t even imagine him with a phone, especially not now that he was dressed in such traditional robes. 

But back to the problem at hand, there were _witches_ now and these witches had something to do with the suicide. Hinata shivered at the thought.

“Wait… you left this super fancy meeting in Tokyo to come see us? Why? And what’s this thing about witches? How does this have anything to do with what happened today?!”

Suzuka san turned to Nishinoya. In that moment he looked older than Hinata had ever seen him. His face weary and tired seemed to sag, and his skin seemed grey and washed out. He let out a sigh.

“To answer all your questions - and indeed I do think they warrant answering no matter what the Yokai council thinks on the matter – would take a very long and complicated story.”

He turned his gaze to Hinata and for the first time that night Hinata felt the true depth and seriousness of the situation. And that was saying something. It was like this was a whole new level of seriousness he had never been a part of before. It hurt to admit, but it felt even a bit more serious than volleyball. VOLLEYBALL! Though maybe not that match against Seijoh in the prelims. That had been pretty serious. Well the most serious he had ever been in his life up till now.

“If you are willing to listen, I am willing to tell you. Though strictly speaking the council does not want anyone to know the full story. But I will tell you all I know.”

Just as Hinata was about to nod Nishinoya spoke up.

“Uh wait… how long are talking about here? Not that I don’t want to here it, it’s just that—uh you know it—it’s getting late and…”

“Oh right how could I have been so negligent, it _is_ getting late, and as young omegas I completely understand if your families expect you to be home by a certain time before they begin to worry—”

“Wait! Suzuka san can’t you just call our parents or something? Let them know where we are.”

“Yes I could… for you. Nishinoya lives with humans, and there is little I can do to explain his whereabouts to humans.”

“Wait you don’t live with your parents Nishinoya senpai?”

Hinata watched curious as Noya seemed to fidget for a bit. He looked nervous, which was a first, but then again today had been a lot of firsts for everyone. He thought back to the scream, and how Kageyama had held him through it. He remembered being really scared and distant from everything happening around him. 

Nishinoya’s voiced snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Uh… no I live with my aunt and uncle… right now… so… yeah…”

An awkward silence followed that statement. The way Noya had said it hadn’t felt right, and the feeling had lingered in the air. Hinata wasn’t sure what was going on anymore. Suzuka san was looking at Nishinoya with deep and understanding and sadness? Kazuo was looking at Nishinoya like he was a difficult puzzle piece he was trying to figure out while doing five different puzzles simultaneously. Hinata furrowed his eyebrows, scrutinisingly observing his senpai. He couldn’t understand what had prompted this tare down of Nishinoya, but he didn’t want to miss out on something important because he hadn’t been staring. 

Now that he was paying attention the smaller omega was starting to look uncomfortable and more than a little nervous, beads of sweat were starting to collect at his temples.

“You know what it’s fine—not a problem! I’ll just text them and tell them I’ll be a little late home…”

Quick as a flash Noya whipped his phone out and began texting.

“See done. Now we can get on with this story, and you all can stop staring!” He grinned waving his phone screen around. Though the grin did look a little forced to Hinata the other two had stopped staring so he would stop staring too. 

“Well you all may need to sit down because it truly is a long tale that I’m afraid even you do not know Kazuo.”

Kazuo looked curious.

“Because what I am about to tell you is the origin of witches.”

It seemed a decent place to start to Hinata, it was after all the beginning of the creatures that had supposedly had a hand in that girl’s death. He glanced at Nishinoya. He didn’t look too perturbed by the opening topic of the story either. 

Kazuo though… Kazuo looked like he’d just been struck. Eyes wide and mouth agape, it was the perfect definition of gobsmacked. Hehe. Gobsmacked, that was a funny word he had learned when his teacher has forced the entire class to read a book. Since he had learned the meaning (by getting Suga to illustrate the word with facial expressions and sounds) he had been trying to use it as much as possible. And Kazuo, well Kazuo looked as physically gobsmacked as possible, ans the story hadn’t even started yet!

“What but uncle! You said no one knew the origins of witches. You said _you_ didn’t know the origins of witches. _I_ should know I’ve asked _you_ about a million times!”

Kazuo looked hurt. And Hinata could understand that. He would be hurt if he found out someone he knew and loved had been keeping things from him. He also felt very awkward standing there listening to a conversation he didn’t feel concerned him. His mother had always taught him to respect other people’s privacy, and this felt like the time to do it.

“Kazuo I apologise for not telling you, but it was supposed to be a secret… until now.”

Suzuka san and Kazuo had a bit of a stare down for a while, before Kazuo finally seemed to concede, dropping his gaze only to replace later with an apologetic one. Suzuka nodded once, and just like that the tense atmosphere that had begun to form receded.

“Now settle down everyone, this story is testing and unearths many a truth that many yokai such as yourselves could never have dreamed of knowing. Because in order for you to truly understand what a witch is, you must understand where witches come from.”

Hurriedly, Hinata went to sit next to Nishinoya against the Maidenhair tree, Kazuo sitting on his other side. Suzuka san came to sit in front of them, looking more and more like the wise yokai teacher he was. 

“The first thing you need to know is that witches are not that old. Though by all means, to you younglings witches were first created long ago by yokai.”

Hinata had been expecting a lot of things, but not this.


	10. Long Story Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah this chapter didn’t make much sense and it probably makes even less sense to people who haven’t watched Puella Magic Madoka Magica, but I didn’t know how else to actually put the back story in so sorry! Below are links to Wikipedia sites that explain what witches are in the madoka fandom so if your really confused than visit those sites. Sorry again.   
> https://madoka.fandom.com/wiki/Witch   
> https://wiki.puella-magi.net/Glossary

“Woah! Woah… Woah! Witches were created by yokai?”

Nishinoya’s voice had gone a whole octave higher and he looked so disbelieving that Kazuo almost laughed. Well, he would have laughed, if he hadn’t been just as shocked. He was almost thankful to his for not dropping this bombshell on him when he had asked at the beginning. He surely would not have been able to handle it, and at least now he had people he could relate and freak out with. Yokai!... had created witches. He was a yokai, they were yokai. Was this a classic creation gone wrong scenario, or had their ancestors been trying to terrorize humans.

“Yes… yokai.”

“Huh! What! Are we bad guys Suzuka san?!” 

Oh God. Hinata looked horrified, eyes wide and pleading as if begging anyone to tell him to stop being ridiculous. And as much as Kazuo wished he could be the alpha to do it (not just because happy omega pheromones made him feel warm inside) but he wasn’t so sure anymore.

“No, _we_ are not. But what you all need to understand is that just like people there are good and bad yokai. So, let me rephrase, witches were created a long time ago by bad yokai.”

This had Kazuo feeling better and seemed to have calmed both omegas down too.

Kazuo didn’t know why, but in the short time he had known Nishinoya and Hinata, the two omegas had grown on him. Kazuo would hate to see either of them upset and had come really close to it when Hinata had brought up parents. Nishinoya had seemed really uncomfortable and if Kazuo hadn’t been standing pretty close to him, he wouldn’t have detected the slight souring of his scent. Omega’s scents didn’t change for nothing, it was a serious shift from the omega’s normal berry – oat smell. This had prompted Kazuo to think that maybe home life wasn’t the best for the omega, he had glanced over at his Uncle for guidance, only to find him looking like he understood the situation better than Nishinoya did. But before he could inquire in a discrete way so that Hinata wouldn’t understand Nishinoya had awkwardly tried to smile it off as nothing (and it obviously wasn’t nothing). Of course, he might just have been jumping the gun, it had been a stressful day for them. 

But back to the point, it had been terrible to smell that on Nishinoya and his alpha seemed to already be protective of the two omegas (not that he didn’t like them too). His thoughts were broken by his Uncle’s voice soft so as not to allow for any eavesdroppers to eavesdrop, but clear enough so that it carried, it was also the perfect voice for storytelling. He remembered always begging his Uncles for stories when he was younger.

“I need you all to stop interrupting me now, if we are ever to get through this story than I need you all to keep your comments to a minimum—”

He stopped talking.

Kazuo sweat dropped. Hinata and Nishinoya had chosen that exact moment to simultaneously stick their hands up like a bunch of grade schoolers with a particularly burning question. He looked back to his Uncle and smirked. Hiroto Suzuka, one of the great and renowned yokai trainers of his time had adopted the expression of an annoyed teacher.

“To answer both your questions. _Yes_ … I am aware there is only so much of your natural omega curiosity I can supress so if you _do_ happen to have any particularly important and relevant questions you may ask them.”

Almost immediately both omegas dropped their hands, Nishinoya rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Hinata on the other hand looked like he was thinking very hard about something. 

“Now if you have no more questions I will begin.” He made sure to look from Nishinoya to Hinata before conceding that no one had anymore questions.

“Yokai are creatures of balance and nature. We protect nature and in return nature rewards us with her bounty. Then humans were created and not all yokai saw eye to eye on the situation. Some saw humans as a new and young species; an extension of nature and just like other creatures they would look after and guide humans. But others as time went by began to see humans as an imbalance, one that needed to be controlled and monitored. 

They did not like humans with their horrible attitudes and the atrocities they committed on nature. But when they confided in the yokai council, the council overruled them, saying they would continue to guide and help the humans. These yokai they became tainted. They began to see yokai kind as ‘superior’ intellectually and saw humans as inferior… they believed that they were above humans and that they should rule over them. There has been bad blood between our two kinds of yokai ever since. The bad yokai turned to darker means of magic, it was a very dark era when they first created witches. 

Witches were essentially little gloom creatures that yokai had created to feed on negative human emotions. They were created to crave the grief and suffering of humans. It was a way for bad yokai to have a little fun, for sick as it maybe they enjoyed watching humans fall apart at the seams and eventually die off.

This was The Great Depression.

One day a particularly strong yokai took to the art of creating witches. But unlike her yokai kin she truly cared for the entity she had created, and she looked after it as if it had emotions and was alive. She went with it everyday and helped it grow, feeding it the negative energy it wanted every day. This caused it to grow stronger and eventually into the closest variation of a fully grown witch. The yokai absolutely adored it… Yes Hinata?”

Kazuo glanced at Hinata. The little omega had his hand raised.

“Why didn’t the Yokai Council stop the bad yokai from making witches?”

“Yeah doesn’t it make more sense to stop a small problem before it becomes big?”

That’s right the Yokai Council existed back then. _Why_ didn’t they do anything?!

“Settle down. The Yokai Council felt they had more important things to be dealing with, and there is a philosophy behind their actions.”

“A philosophy?” Hinata wrinkled his nose in thought.

“Yes, a philosophy… now if you all would go back to being the great listeners you were being, I’ll explain. The philosophy of magic dark or otherwise is that something cannot be created out of nothing. That philosophy is old I concede, and there are more than a few exceptions to that rule, but for the most part it was completely applicable to witches. You cannot create an entity or a black hole that sucks emotions with out giving the magic a physical base to latch onto and grow. Eventually the magic would get too unstable as it sucked negative emotions that the witch would dispel. 

This witch however had lived longer than any, as whenever it had begun to get unstable its creator would stabilise it with her own magic. She could not do this forever though, so eventually the witch did dispel. But it left behind something; a capsule. She worked out that because she had kept the witch alive for an unnaturally extended period of time that the dark matter which made up the witch had been compressed long enough to begin to create a living sentient creature. But the only thing that had been left behind of that creature was the hollow capsule. She figured out that it was to be its heart and soul and if the witch had been truly developed, the feelings it had gained would have stayed inside the soul gem and sustained the witch all on its own. But it was impossible to truly develop emotions and a personality inside a witch. 

Until that same yokai decided to put an actual sentient being inside her witch’s capsule so that if she created the witch again it would sustain itself. She took the soul of a vengeful spirit and recreated the witch around the soul gem which was already black with grief.

Catching on some other powerful yokai sought to try and as time went by witches evolved and gained new ways of torturing humans and gaining the miserable emotions they so craved. The stronger ones were able to make familiars using their own magic which they developed over the years to suit their personalities and personal liking. These familiars would eventually grow into fully grown witches with their own grief seed (which is what their soul gems became as they were so tainted by negative emotions) after they’ve eaten four or more humans. 

But those were the witches of the past. As soon as the Yokai Council saw how much of a threat witches were becoming they had to do something, they—”

“A threat? Surely witches don’t affect the yokai world, otherwise bad yokai wouldn’t have kept creating them. So how were they a problem to the Yokai Council?” 

Kazuo had to give it to Nishinoya, while he was here freaking out about witches having souls, Noya had actually asked a relevant question. Kazuo had met the Yokai Council on one occasion, when he had been younger he had accompanied his uncle to a meeting, and well… the Yokai Council hadn’t been the most emotional bunch. They wouldn’t have helped the humans out of pure love and obligation.

“Very good observation and deduction Nishinoya.”

Despite himself Nishinoya beamed at the praise. Kazuo rolled his eyes, _omegas_.

“And absolutely correct. The Yokai Council did not take action because of a few witches killing humans. No, it was much more complex than that.”

Kazuo raised an eyebrow, it looked like this story would be getting longer and longer. He checked his phone. It was past 8 (I have no clue how long they normally stay at volleyball practice). HE tore his gaze from his phone as his uncle started talking again.

“You see witches are unwanted by natural law. They create barriers to hide and conceal themselves in. These barriers or labyrinths that witches are capable of creating are often surreal in nature and can be controlled by the witch to attack any intruders, so it is a top of the art defence system for witches and they do not leave them.   
However, the making of their barrier is an unnatural expansion of space which – believe it or not – tilts the magical balance of the earth. And the entrances to these barriers are unnatural cracks in the earth’s reality. That is one reason why the Yokai Council got involved, another being that a side effect of witches feeding on all that grief and turning it into energy to fuel their powers, was that the witch would excrete waste in the form of a colourless, odourless gas. A gas that just happens to be one of the leading greenhouse gases in the world today. A greenhouse gas that humans don’t even know exist, so as much as we blame humans for global warming and overall entropy, the fact remains that it is just as much our fault.”

His Uncle seemed to decide that now would be a good time pause and let the new information sink in before continuing. Kazuo smirked, now was his chance!

“Wait so how do witches themselves directly affect the humans if they don’t leave their barriers?”

He feels both omegas’ eyes on him, but he keeps his eyes firmly on his uncle’s face.

His Uncle’s very unimpressed face.

Kazuo feels his ears start to go red. _Ok_ , so he already knew the answer to that question. Was it wrong for him to not want to be the only one without a good question?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know what else to call them apart from ‘bad yokai’ so if anyone had a cooler name to call the antagonists of this story, pls suggest it in the comments. My name choice sucks.
> 
> Anyway, the next chapter will be part two of the explanation and will include magical girls, and a little bit more of the plot will unravel, nothing too big.


	11. Long Story Part 2

“Wait so how do witches themselves directly affect the humans if they don’t leave their barriers?”

That… was… a _good_ question. 

Nishinoya had almost forgotten why they were here in the first place. The girl! A witch had killed her apparently. But that didn’t make sense if what Suzuka said was right, then witches couldn’t leave their barriers or else everyone would be able to see them and they would be pretty vulnerable. And back to the topic at hand, how could the witch have killed the girl without leaving its barrier and physically touching her? Did it use magic? And could it do that to anyone else?

Not to mention now that he thought about it, Hiroto Suzuka had not answered any of their initial questions about what they had to do with this and how to deal with witches. 

He looked over to Hinata who looked to be thinking very hard about something. Probably about everything that Suzuka senior had just told them. It was really discouraging to know that witches were out there wrecking havoc in people’s lives, AND their familiars were apparently _eating people_? Did that mean witches ate people too? How did they eat people if they didn’t leave their barriers? Could familiars leave the barriers? And if witches did eat people why didn’t it eat that girl? Oh, and did anything eat witches, or did they just multiply unchallenged? And how long did witches live…

Argh! Now he had more questions than what he started with.

“Good question Kazuo, and of course it brings us back to the matter at hand. Witches have evolved a lot since back in the dark ages and have figured out a way to lure people into their barriers. And you should know that once a normal person enters a barrier it is impossible for them to leave without magical help. 

To lure people in, witches use something called a Witch’s Kiss. It is a curse unique to a witch’s abilities and will cause a human to unthinkingly enter the witch’s barrier, they will not be able to control the urge to. A side effect of the witch’s kiss is that it causes a whole lot of negative mental issues. The most common being suicidal tendencies, emotions of depression, hate, mistrust, and of course a lot of crimes are caused by people under the influence of a witch’s kiss. It is basically a curse of despair. 

Some people are mentally weaker than others and succumb to things such as suicide before they can be lured into the barrier to be devoured, at the time of the kiss that girl must have been having some problems in life, and that along with the kiss must have been too much.”

His voice grew softer at the end and he stopped talking. Nishinoya meanwhile was finding it hard to swallow the lump in his throat. They were talking about the end of a girl’s life as if it was nothing. Noya felt himself start to shake, unconsciously he moved closer to his young kouhai, seeking comfort. Hinata looked just as bad as he felt. Nishinoya had never talked about someone’s death like this before, even if he wasn’t actually talking. 

He felt awful.

It was so unfair. Why did the girl have to die? Why did her family have to suffer? Had people been dying like this for who knows how long, and he had been going on with is life doing nothing!? He felt like a failure all over again, but not just to his family this time… this time it was bigger. 

He was snapped out of his daze by Hinata. Who was snuggling closer, hair now tickling his jaw. The younger omega’s scent was turning sour with anxiety. Acting on instinct, Nishinoya immediately pulled Hinata closer, settling his chin on the top of Hinata unruly bed of curls. And if the action just so happened to calm him down too, he wasn’t complaining, to him Hinata smelled of family and pack, and nothing was more comforting to Nishinoya then pack. 

“Just curious…” Nishinoya looked up from his position, and he felt Hinata shift too, his hair tickling the underside of his jaw. Suzuka had an unreadable expression on his face, what was it now?

“On the girl’s body… did either of you… _see_ anything strange… on her face perhaps. A picture or a symbol… it wouldn’t have stayed there for long…”

Suzuka san’s eyes were more intense than usual, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set in what could only be called the starts of a frown. It was unsettling, the way his gaze seemed to burn into his own. 

“There was…” Hinata spoke up, separating himself from Nishinoya.

“It was like a tattoo on the girl’s forehead, it disappeared afterwards, I thought I had imagined it.”

Suzuka looked thoughtful after that. 

“Why? What did it mean?” Nishinoya asked impatiently. He had just realised how late it was, surely his aunt and uncle would be worried. Though they hadn’t texted to indicate they were worried.

“Well before you confirmed our suspicions it wasn’t absolutely certain this was the work of a witch, but now it is clear. You see, if a cursed human dies before they can be eaten by the witch, all the negative emotions the ‘kiss’ caused will leave the human’s body and be brought back for the witch to enjoy and feast on, it does not offer all the satisfaction that the entire human still alive does, but the witch still gets a bit of a feed. That tattoo is proof of the witch’s curse. 

Of course, like I said before witches cause a shift in the magical balance of the universe, so quickly after witches began multiplying on their own a new species of yokai was born to combat this shift as well as global warming. They are called Incubators. 

Incubators create what we yokai call Magical Girls. And it is a magical girl’s job to hunt and kill witches.” 

Again Suzuka paused to let the concept of magical girls sink in.

Nishinoya wasn’t hung on the concept of girls having magic (they were yokai for goodness sake!), but he felt like there was more to this story so stayed silent in hopes that he would continue with the story and hurry things up. It was getting really late! And he was hungry! His stomach needed its Gari Gari kun and maybe some rice too. As if in sync with his thoughts Hinata’s stomach growled signalling the orange haired omega was just as hungry as he was.

Suzuka chuckled, “It is apparent to me that I have to hurry this story up before I lose your attention completely to the thought of food.”

_Damn right he had to hurry_ , Nishinoya couldn’t help but think grumpily. He was emotionally and physically exhausted from the events of the day, he didn’t think his attention span would last much longer even if they were talking about magic. He didn’t think his omega hindbrain could handle much more anxiety before he was forced to stop paying attention for risk of dropping.

“Magical girl magic works in the same way as witches. They convert emotions into energy which they exert as magic. But this is not toxic as they draw the emotions from themselves. All magical girls start out as normal girls and become magical girls by making a contract with an Incubator. 

Incubator contracts are simple (they’re not really), in exchange for a wish – anything the girl could ever want – the girl promises to hunt witches for the rest of their lives. The magical girl receives unique personalised powers that has something to do with the wish they made. For example, if the girl wished to save a dying friend, they could be given healing powers. Of course, magical girls are especially adept to deal with witches as they are the natural predator of the witch, otherwise witches would live forever. 

Now normally – this is the important part so pay attention – the ratio of witches to magical girls have kept the witch population more or less under control, but recently there has been a new development that has caused bad yokai to rebel and go completely against the rest of yokai kind. Before the bad yokai were just sharing their views with others and causing a little ruckus, but now they have done something that the Yokai Council cannot ignore. About 20 years ago—”

“Wait what was the ‘new development’ and why did it cause the bad yokai to rebel?”

Nishinoya thought that was a fair question, that Hinata had every right to be asking, but Suzuka seemed to tense at the mention of it. Nishinoya’s eyes narrowed. What could he be trying to hide? He had said he would tell them everything. He watches as Suzuka san closed his eyes, he seemed to be stewing on his choices. Kazuo was watching curiously too, apparently he didn’t know what the new development was either.

Then Suzuka took a deep breath, he seemed to have reached his decision.

“There is a particular gem that has been discovered, and it holds immense power. But the gem deposits are deep underground, and well we yokai have never in all the years we have inhabited the earth, partaken in the exploitation of the Earths’ inner resources.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, you had me until the word partaken.”

“It means we yokai have never mined for stuff underground because it’s bad for the earth,” Kazuo cleared up.

“Yes, yes now pay attention. The bad yokai believe that yokai should have this power and the Yokai Council did not agree. Since then bad yokai have gone rogue from the yokai community, and have started an indirect war of sorts.”

Suzuka didn’t seem to sense the confusion after the last part, though before Nishinoya could ask what he meant by ‘war’ Kazuo began to explain.

“Not a ‘war’ as in World War 1 or 2, where you sent troupes to the front line to fight and kill as many enemy troupes as possible. This was more like the foreplay before the real war. You know? What a nation does to weaken an enemy nation before the actual war.”

“What did the bad yokai do to ‘weaken’ us Suzuka san?”

Nishinoya gulped, he did not think he was going to like whatever Suzuka said next.

“20 years ago they made a deal with the more intelligent witches. Promising them a surplus of human grief and misery if they were in charge and the witches liked that idea. So dark yokai began creating witches again and started helping witches create negative emotions so they could multiply faster. Now we are in a bit of a predicament. Magical girls are being defeated faster than they can be created, and witches are multiplying faster than they can be stopped. Global warming is worse than ever, and while the light yokai are busy dealing with these arising problems the dark yokai can plan their strategies for when they decide to attack. You see the problem?”

Nishinoya did see. It was just like a game of volleyball. And he had just found out that the team he was on was not only failing at defence, they were falling behind on their attacks too. And that had started 20 years before he even knew he was playing on a team. Now the question was, what was the Yokai Council (lame name for a volleyball team) doing to counterattack the onslaught of witches?

“Of course, you must be wondering what the Yokai Council have been doing to counteract this attack. Compared to the dark yokai warriors, most witches are fairly easy to defeat, although there are the few exceptions. So, the Yokai Council did not want to make the foolish decision of sending their own warriors to fight an adversary that would keep multiplying and was just a diversion anyway. So, keeping their warriors focused on dark yokai activity around the world they had to figure out another way of combatting the witches. The solution they came up with was sending the Yokai trainers out to the districts. So, instead of letting eager young yokai come to us to train in our exclusive yokai schools and become apart of the yokai guard, the teachers would go out to each district and create and train a team of young yokai to combat witches in the area. 

Nishinoya… Hinata… there is currently no one in the Miyagi Prefecture Team. Kazuo had been trying to keep the witches at bay, but there is only so much one person can do. Lately the witches have been exploiting the weaknesses here. All the others who I trained did not have what it takes—”

“They’re dead!?” Nishinoya and Hinata yelled simultaneously, shocking Suzuka into silence and causing Kazuo to raise a questioning eyebrow at them. 

Sheepishly, Noya brought a hand to the back of his head, maybe he and Hinata had been jumping to conclusions a bit. 

“Excuse me for my wording. I do not make a habit of sending people to their deaths, all I meant was they did not have what it takes to kill it a witch. Not that they couldn’t have with more time. But the thing is, we do not have much more time to waste, and you two are the only yokai who seem promising.”

“So we’re a last resort?” Hinata sounded hurt.

“No. You are the only ones who I have yet to try and train. And I must admit from watching your volleyball games you do show promise. It is a lot I am asking of you, and the training to does take time. But I am willing to work flexible hours, so you do not have to miss your precious volleyball time. All I am asking is that you try, or the people living here are surely doomed. It starts with a prefecture, and as witches gain ground, it will end with the death of an entire world.”

Hinata was gaping at him now and Noya couldn’t blame him, it seemed like Suzuka had laid that on a bit heavy, as if they didn’t take it seriously already.

“Woah… that was intense…” was all Noya could get out.

“Eh! Where’s the happy ending? Stories have to have a happy ending!”

“Well… technically there is no ending… but you can help to make it… if you say yes that is…”

Hiroto san seemed to analyse the effect of his words, and seemed to be happy that no one was crying yet. He also smelled a bit anxious, like he really cared about their answers. Like… the world and the lives of everyone they knew really did rest on the answer they would give. 

Nishinoya bit his lip. Deep down he knew there was no choice, he was going to do this, and nothing could make him change his mind. He couldn’t keep ignoring what he was anymore, as much as he wanted to…

Absently he heard Hinata talking about how they were ‘like heroes in a videogame’. 

Hiroto san stood up and approached the Maidenhair tree where they were sitting. He crouched in front of them and looked them both in the eyes.

“The choice is yours.”

“What choice?” Nishinoya scoffed. 

“There is no choice. If we don’t do something, our friends and family and a whole bunch of innocent people will get hurt.”

“So that’s a yes?” Kazuo asked, smirking inquiringly. What an annoying prick. A tick mark appeared on Nishinoya’s forehead. But then he stopped realising the heaviness of the question. Kazuo may have asked in a light and playful way, but saying yes could have all sorts of consequences. 

Don’t get him wrong, Noya had all but decided, it was just… he couldn’t help but think of his _family_. His family that would no doubt see him as a freak if they knew… 

“Uh well—I mean… I have to, so yeah—why not?” he grinned nervously, swallowing the lump in his throat.

_That’s right. He **had** to._ If his family ever did find out, it’s not like he was embracing his freakiness, he had done his best to be a normal person since presenting, and now he had no other choice. He _had_ to do it. 

“Well, if Nishinoya senpai is doing it, then I’m in too!” Hinata yelled excitedly, grinning excitedly whilst jumping in the air.

“That’s the spirit carrot top! Welcome to the team!” Kazuo yelled just as enthusiastic, giving Hinata a thumbs up and an equally wide grin.

And for the first time in what felt like a very long time, Nishinoya grinned his signature grin.


	12. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just Nishinoya and Kazuo revealing their family issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The POV got a little confusing, sorry about that

Nishinoya frowned, turning to stare distastefully at the alpha walking next to him. The moment was gone. Now that it was just to two of them walking along the streets to his house, he didn’t feel excitement or hope or even determination, all he felt was exhausted. Exhausted mentally, and since he had missed lunched and tried his hardest in volleyball (as always), he was physically tired too. Hiroto Suzuka had taken Hinata home, because of course he knew his mother, and now Nishinoya was stuck with Kazuo.

He understood why the alpha had to walk him home, and if he wasn’t so grumpy from being tired he would be a bit more grateful to Kazuo for walking him home. But right now all he wanted was food and _sleep_.

Oh god. He really missed his bed. He let out a tired yawn just thinking about it.

“Hey Nishinoya.”

Nishinoya turns to look at Kazuo curiously, as he continues to lead the way to his house. Kazuo sounded serious.

“Why did you turn my Uncle down last year? I mean if you had started training with all the other newly presented yokai you could be really strong right now. But you didn’t… you said no. Why?”

Nishinoya couldn’t help but tense, this was getting dangerously close to _that_.

“Why do you ask?” he tries to keep his voice even and casual. 

Kazuo looks off into space, his brow furrowed in thought. 

“It’s just that before I met you, I assumed it was fear, you know, our job is really dangerous. But now… now I’m not so sure…”

Nishinoya stayed silent.

“Is it your family?”

Nishinoya tensed further, how had he known?

“You don’t have to answer. I get it, you know. My family’s not the most put together either.”

Nishinoya raised both eyebrows in surprise. What could possibly be wrong with Kazuo’s family, he seemed so happy all the time.

“How do you mean?” Nishinoya asked curiously, staring at Kazuo with wide eyes as they walked.

Kazuo smirked knowingly.

Nishinoya blushed, realising that wasn’t the most tactful way to ask someone about their family problems, especially since he refused to tell him about his own. Damn his curiosity, he must be more out of it than he thought, he usually knew when not to speak his mind.

“Uh… I mean, you don’t have to tell me—either.” Nishinoya fumbled over his words, waving his arms around as he went. He didn’t want to offend his newfound teammate as annoying as the alpha was, he was a good guy (form what Noya could tell).

Kazuo’s smile softened into a sad smile. 

“It’s okay, I’ll tell you, I don’t mind. My parents are both really strong yokai warriors who serve the great pureblood lineage in the mountains. From the moments my first memories began to form, I remember them arguing. That’s all remember them doing since I was kid. Peaceful moments were rare in our household. That’s why I live with my uncle, and I travel with him everywhere he goes. Don’t get me wrong. I love both my parents, I just wished they could be in the same room without arguing.”

Nishinoya felt bad for the alpha. That sounded horrible. At least the few memories he had of his parents together were pleasant. Warm touches, gentle smiles, sweet nothings; Nishinoya felt warm and bubbly just thinking about it, then he felt like crying because that wasn’t his reality anymore. But that was besides the point, at least he had warm memories to think back on.

“When did you stop living with them?” he asked softly.

“When I was 10… the arguing was getting to be too much, they hardly even paid me attention anymore. My uncle took me away to the yokai training school he taught at, and I lived with him ever since. And you know, the funny thing was my parents haven’t even realised to this day why I really left, they still think it was so my uncle could train me, and they could focus on their missions.”

“You haven’t seen your parents since you were 10?” Nishinoya asked, appalled voice cracking at the end.

Nishinoya was shocked at how much he felt like crying, and how much he already cared about Kazuo. Though that could just be the omega in him talking, always seeking to comfort a hurt soul. But Kazuo didn’t seem like the type of alpha who could handle an omega crying, so he kept his tears from falling.  
“Um well… no!” Kazuo yelled, panicking. “I see them now and then, normally they’re not together, but then again that is when they’re the most loving. So, it’s not that bad. I just wish we could be a happy family once in a while. And do you know what the worst part is?!”

Nishinoya listened, shaking his head, the alpha seemed to have gone from reminiscing to ranting.

“They still don’t know how horrible of a family we are. They don’t realise how much they’re arguing and won’t take a step to fix things, because they’re both oblivious idiots!”

Kazuo panted and looked away, he seemed to be worn out from his outburst. Noya watched wide eyed, as his body stiffened involuntarily at the alpha’s scent. Noya released calming pheromones in a bid calm the alpha down. 

Nishinoya turned his gaze to the ground. He wasn’t the only one with family problems, and it felt only right that he told Kazuo a little about his family, now that he knew so much about his. Besides, he didn’t know why, but the alpha’s outburst made him want to get stuff off his chest. Or maybe it was just to draw his attention away from the painful memories, Kazuo’s own memories brought back…

“I—the reason I refused your uncle was—is because I don’t want to be a yokai…”

Noya looked sadly down at the floor, belatedly realising how offensive that probably sounded to Kazuo… who _was_ a yokai. Oh well, he had never gone wrong with saying what was on his mind before (except that time when Asahi left).

“What do you mean? Why?”

“My dad left when I was 15… and well—at the time I didn’t understand why. But then I turned 16 and inherited.”

Kazuo looked confused, “So…?”

“Isn’t it obvious, he left me because he knew I would inherit. He doesn’t like yokai… he doesn’t like me…” Noya said dejected, tears pooling at his eyes. His scent started to sour which had Kazuo crinkling his nose in distaste. 

“Wait—hold on,” he held his hands out in the universal ‘back it up’ gesture, “aren’t you jumping to conclusions a little too quickly. How do you know that’s why your dad left you? People mourn in different ways, maybe he couldn’t take the familiar scenery… or something?”

“Then he would have taken me with him to Tokyo. Besides if you had met the people I’m living with – from by dad’s side by the way – you would see. They are the most borin—uh normal people alive. They hate anything odd. And being a yokai is way out there in their odd spectrum. If dad’s family is like that than who’s to say he doesn’t think the same way? Anyway, I don’t want to be freaky to him. If he left me because I’m… like this, than I don’t want to embrace the part he doesn’t like.”

“But… you like being a yokai… don’t you?”

Angry frustrated tears started to spill down Nishinoya’s face.

“OF COURSE, I DO! IT’S SO FRICKING AWESOME!”

An unfamiliar weight rested on his shoulder for the second time that day. The smell of Cyprus trees and fresh pomegranate filled his nose. It was Kazuo’s scent. He was obviously trying to relax him. For the first time in his life, Nishinoya wished that it was  
another hand squeezing his shoulder trying to comfort him. He wished that when he breathing in he would smell the familiar earthy tones and pine wood with a hint of lemon. _Asahi_. He found himself wishing the other alpha was here instead of Kazuo. Don’t get him wrong, Kazuo didn’t smell _bad_. In fact, he smelled quite nice, and it did calm him down… but his scent just didn’t ground him like Asahi’s did—like it had earlier at school. Before he could think more about what this meant Kazuo started talking again.

“You don’t have to think the same as your dad or his family, it doesn’t matter if they like yokai or not, because I know you do… and that’s all that matters. I know family means a lot, but their views in life shouldn’t dictate how you live your life, if they really cared they would like you yokai or not. Besides you can’t be sure what they’d think and I’m pretty sure your dad doesn’t hate yokai.”

Noya sniffled. His tears already dried up, threatened to spill again. Had Kazuo not been listening? What other reason could there be for his dad to move all the way to Tokyo and not take him with him for? There was no other reason. Right?

“No wait! Don’t cry. Just hear me out. Before I came to get you and Hinata I asked my Uncle about you.” 

Nishinoya raised a question eyebrow.

“I wanted to know more about you because you were the first one since my Uncle came to Miyagi Prefecture to reject him and basically obtaining superpowers. He told me that he had lived here a while ago when I was still living with my parents, and that’s why he snatched up the training job for this prefecture. Anyway, he knew your mum… and your dad. When your mum revealed to your dad that she was a yokai—well sure he freaked out a bit—but after he accepted her for who and what she was, and he accepted that you were probably going to be a yokai when you grow up (because yokai genes are dominant).”

Kazuo looked over at Nishinoya, the small omega was trembling. Obviously, it had been too much talk of parents already. He needed to end this conversation quickly, before it got too emotional.

“Look, Nishinoya, I don’t know why your dad left you. But it definitely wasn’t because of what you think. Your father loved yokai and fully embraced our world. And I’m sure he’d want you to as well.”

He made sure to make his voice soft at the end. Just in case. But Nishinoya was trembling. Oh shit! He must have been too insensitive. Kazuo refrained from running around the omega in panic. He had to stay calm. Oh Shit! Now there were big fat tears flowing down the omega’s rosy cheeks, and they did not look easy to stop.  
Nishinoya looked up. Despite the tears running down his face, he had the most sincere grin Kazuo had ever seen on the small omega’s face.

“KAZUO! I’M GONNA BE THE COOLEST YOKAI EVER!”

Kazuo couldn’t help it. He grinned too. Looks like they had gotten quite the ally.

“Yeah right! Maybe the coolest after me!”

“Hah! Don’t flatter yourself. Once I’m trained up, you’ll have nothing on me.”

They went on like this for a while, until they reached Nishinoya’s house.

“Welp! This is me.”

Kazuo nodded, chewing the inside of his cheek. He turned to walk away when…

“Hey Kazuo… thanks.”

Nishinoya went to unlock to door and let himself in after that. Kazuo had really made him feel better. Now if he’d stop being so annoying, he might like him more.

“Wait… Noya.”

Noya turned around curiously.

“You sho—you should talk to my uncle. He knows a lot more than he lets on.”

Kazuo brought his gaze to the floor, shoulders slumped.

“He always does,” he mumbles bitterly to himself, but Noya hears anyway.

He nods solemnly. 

“I will. Thanks.”

Kazuo turns his back and walks away. He and Nishinoya may still have family problems, but he actually felt better after their talk. And best of all. He had a team now.

And if today was anything to go by, his team would be worth just as much as family.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any grammar mistakes, English isn't my first language.  
> Haikyuu and Puella Magi Madoka Magica do not belong to me.


End file.
